Rosedale: 100 Years Deadly Johnstown shooting sparked KKK-backed banishment of Black residents in 1923

Aug. 26—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Sometime back in the 1990s, Mary Carol "Butchie" Edwards read a column in The Tribune-Democrat about the 1923 Rosedale incident and, much to her surprise, saw the name "Joseph Grachan."

It was only then that she learned her grandfather was one of the six police officers who were shot during a bloody altercation in Johnstown almost a century ago on Aug. 30, 1923, leading to an edict in which Mayor Joseph Cauffiel banished all Black and Mexican people who had not lived in the city for at least seven years.

Grachan, who came from the Black Forest in Germany, eventually died in his early 60s, when Edwards was still a child.

She does not remember her grandfather or any other family members ever speaking about the incident.

"They didn't talk about anything," Edwards said. "They never told you anything. As a kid, back then, you kept your mouth shut and you listened."

Edwards recalled her grandfather as a "kind, gentle man." He worked as a security guard at a bank downtown after his time with the Johnstown Police Department.

"I only remember good things about him," she said, "and him praising my mother. My mother made a really good roast beef with potatoes and everything around it, and he loved her cooking. That I remember."

Grachan's reputation survived him.

Once, when Edwards was filling out a job application, using what at the time was her maiden name, a person with the business asked, " 'Is your grandfather Joseph N. Grachan?' " She replied, "Yes."

"He said, 'You've got the job. He was an honorable man.' Then he told me he was a good dresser," Edwards said.

To this day, she still owns a photo of him, looking dapper as he poses with his three children, including her father.

'Let me have my gun back'

Robert Young, a Black migrant from the South with a rumored criminal record in Alabama, was — by accounts from the time — drunk, angry and causing a disruption in the city's Rosedale neighborhood on Aug. 30, 1923.

He argued with a woman identified as his wife in some reports, his girlfriend in others. Young, in an agitated state, left to go drink, play cards and do drugs.

Grachan, walking a beat in Rosedale, heard reports of a disturbance and went to check. The woman told him all was well, so the officer left.

Young was later involved in an automobile accident. Grachan was again the officer who investigated.

An altercation ensued during which Young shot Grachan in his right lung. Grachan escaped into a nearby restaurant, where employees tended to his wounds.

John James, a county detective, called The Johnstown Democrat around 11 p.m. and informed the newspaper of a shooting in Rosedale.

"You will hear from me in a short time," he told a reporter.

James and special officer Joseph Abrahams found Grachan in the restaurant, looking "pale and weak from loss of blood," according to the Democrat. Grachan reportedly said, "Let me have my gun back. I'll go out and get 'em."

Abrahams and James instructed the people in the restaurant to not let Grachan leave until an ambulance arrived.

They then headed back into the streets and — it turned out — to their deaths.

'That wasn't right'

Young's violence escalated, reports show.

After encountering Grachan, he shot James, Abrahams, Capt. Otto Fink, Lt. William Bender and Det. Otto Nukem.

Some conflicting reports exist, including Abrahams being identified as "Abraham" in the Democrat, but all first-source accounts and research show that Young was shooting to kill the officers as he made his way through the neighborhood.

Abrahams was struck while still at the wheel of his automobile. James was fired upon while going into a house in which Young was holed up. Fink was hit in the spine. Nukem took a bullet in the left arm. Bender was wounded in the abdomen.

Det. John Yoder, who had a riot gun, eventually killed Young, ending the altercation.

"Within a few yards of where James and Abrahams were shot, Yoder finally succeeded in shooting (Young) through the chest. Young staggered a few feet and fell dead in the yard in the rear of a shanty," as reported in the Democrat.

Four of the officers died.

Abrahams and James lost their lives that day. Nukem passed away on Sept. 12, 1923, of a heart attack after coming down with the flu, according to notes in The Tribune-Democrat's archives. Fink, paralyzed from his injuries, passed away on Nov. 2, 1923.

Bender survived, as did Grachan, who The Johnstown Tribune originally proclaimed to be "fatally hurt" and among the "seriously wounded, two of whom will probably die."

More than 20 suspects were rounded up, but it was quickly determined Young acted alone. Young was described in the press as a "negro desperado" who was "frenzied by drink."

A little more than a week after the incident, Cauffiel, supported by the Ku Klux Klan, issued his order, which led to an estimated 500 to 2,000 Black and Mexican citizens leaving the city, an action that drew national attention.

"They shouldn't have done that with the Black people in Rosedale," Edwards said. "That was wrong of them to empty that out. Where were they going to go? That wasn't right."

Today, there are tributes to the officers as part of the Johnstown Police Department's wall of the fallen, but there is no public display for them in the city.

NAACP Johnstown Branch President Alan Cashaw said it has been "a misstep on the history of Johnstown" to not honor them.

"I think there was a conscious effort to not let it be remembered," Cashaw said.

A resurgence of interest in Rosedale has occurred leading up to the event's 100th anniversary, which coincided with a reexamination of race relations throughout the nation's history.

Author Cody McDevitt wrote the book "Banished from Johnstown: Racist Backlash in Pennsylvania" about the Rosedale incident. The book was published in 2015.

"Things just disappear," said Barbara Zaborowski, Penn Highlands Community College's dean for learning resources and researcher of local Black history.

"What's causing the recent interest? I couldn't say. I guess maybe Cody McDevitt's book being published raised awareness. The 100th anniversary, of course, is raising interest. There's nothing of Rosedale left. It's not like you can go and say, 'Oh, here's where it happened. Here are houses. This little neighborhood was part of it.' All that's gone."

As opposed to the 1990s, when an article needed to be clipped to be preserved, researchers today have access to an endless supply of online archived material to study.

"This is an illustration of the types of reconstructions we could have going forward, the more that these newspapers are added to that repository," McDevitt said.