JACKSON, MI – The history books call it the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, as it was America's first major rail strike and first general strike.
It spread from the Northeast to the Upper Midwest in days. There were riots, battles between authorities and workers, scores of deaths and huge losses in railroad property.
And, as a major railroad town, Jackson might have been hit hard. But here, the strike only teetered on the brink of catastrophe.
The strike began on July 14 at Martinsburg, W.Va., in response to a third successive wage cut by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Strikers would not let freight move until the cut was revoked. Sympathy strikes rippled through the country.
In Maryland, protesters and militia members clashed violently, leaving 10 dead and 25 wounded.
At Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Militia members bayoneted or shot rock-throwing strikers, leaving 20 dead and 29 wounded. Infuriated, strikers forced militiamen to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse. They set fires that razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars.
In Chicago, the Times, whose editor Wilbur F. Storey had once put out the Jackson Patriot, carried the screaming headline, "Terrors Reign, The Streets of Chicago Given Over to Howling Mobs of Thieves and Cutthroats." There were more deaths, and militia and federal troops were sent in to quash the riots.
The first Michigan effects of the strike were felt on July 23 when 40 Michigan Central yardmen walked off the job following a 10-percent wage cut.
"Fellow workers left their jobs the next day. The Michigan Central stopped receiving freight but there was no strike by trainmen. Michigan Central workers in Jackson went on strike as well ...," according to a Michigan railroad web site.
But, this brief reference to Jackson leaves much untold.
In 1877, Jackson was at its zenith as a railroad town. It was home to the Michigan Central repair shops where hundreds of men worked. It was a major railroad town, bustling with taverns, tracks and trouble. Just a few years earlier, a handsome passenger depot had been built.
When these 40 Michigan Central workers walked off the job, Jackson workers called an emergency meeting and appointed a committee to meet with railroad officials the next day.
Michigan Central was cooperative. A special railroad car carried committee members to Detroit to meet with the company's two top officers – Henry B. Ledyard, general manager, and director James F. Joy.
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According to accounts in the Jackson papers, the two officials told the committee "that in the present condition of the business of the company it would be impossible for the company to entertain the demand of the men."
However, employees whose pay had been cut in an earlier economy would be held harmless this time.
Anxious to avoid riots, the two officers offered to meet employees "at any time and place appointed by such employees, and place the matter fairly and squarely before them."
That evening, railroad employees, anxious to hear the committee's report, packed Jackson's Union Hall. To a man, committee members urged "careful, cool and deliberate consideration" of the Michigan Central offer.
The consensus was to meet with Joy and Ledyard the next day at Jackson's new passenger depot. However, some elements opposed that "cool and deliberate" process and began stirring the pot of rebellion.
About 1,000 people gathered at the depot, but only about half were allowed to participate, for many were not railroad workers.
Both Ledyard and Joy spoke to the men, most of whom seemed inclined to accept their report on the Michigan Central's bleak financial status. Workers were assured that wages would be restored as the railroad returned to financial health.
However, agitators were vocal, and trouble seemed ready to break out. As the depot meeting was in progress, Jackson Mayor James O'Donnell issued a proclamation calling for a citizens meeting at Union Hall the next morning.
"Certain derangements now exist in certain departments of industry in this municipality which impede business and are detrimental to the prosperity of our city," the mayor wrote.
Some 200 citizens showed up at that meeting where various people addressed the crisis. Resolutions were passed and citizens were called on to join a special police force to maintain order.
That same day, July 26, Train No. 4 started to leave Jackson with the mail. A mixed crowd of rail employees and outsiders jumped it and stopped it by setting the brakes and uncoupling the engine. They threatened to prevent all trains from going through Jackson.
Ledyard immediately telegraphed Gov. Charles M. Croswell in Lansing who directed Gen. William Withington to work with citizens and civil authorities to keep order.
Croswell also authorized military officials to respond as they saw fit. Those officials, aware of what had happened at Pittsburgh, called the state militia to an encampment at Jackson. However, they only kept troops ready, avoiding any direct confrontation.
All the elements were there for serious trouble. But the calm leadership of the governor and railroad officials, and the desire of the strike leaders to avoid violence, averted any serious trouble.
As Charles V. DeLand put it in his 1903 History of Jackson County, "The prompt action of the citizens and the city and state authorities prevented bloodshed and destruction of property, but the danger was a lesson to all that such disturbances had best be avoided, and it is to the credit of all that no such attempt at coercion has since been attempted at this point."
• The 1885 book, "Portraits and Biographies of Governors of Michigan," had this to say of Gov. Charles M. Croswell: "The great riot at Jackson occurred during his administration, and it was only by his promptness that great destruction of both life and property was prevented at that time."
• The Aug. 2, 1877, issue of the Daily Citizen reported, "The officers of the Michigan Central Railroad Co. inform us that the Central is now in complete working order, and ready to receive freight from all points."
• In addition to 62 special police officers put into duty during the brief strike, 269 Jackson citizens signed a resolution committing themselves to service should they be needed.
• Henry B. Ledyard, who was general manager of the Michigan Central Railroad at the time of the 1877 strike, had served briefly as mayor of Detroit. He was also the grandson of Lewis Cass, arguably the most influential early figure in Michigan history.