Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
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Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878
Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
Everybody you would see, had a bundle on their
shoulders or their heads.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. What time of night was this?
A. Between three and four o'clock in the morning. I came down to
Twenty-third street, but we could not go into service at all. They were
shooting at that time out of the machine shop and the round-house.
Q. Who were shooting?
A. The soldiers, and the others were shooting out of the board pile.
Q. Firing at the round-house?
A. Yes; they took this gun and planted it in the street to shoot into
the round-house, and these men in the round-house, when they would go
to sight this gun, would shoot them. They had this gun loaded with
links and pins belonging to the railroad company. After the fire
started, I think it could have been stopped before it set the
round-house on fire. I think at that time it could have been stopped,
because in the morning, about six or seven o'clock, they commenced
running down the wall--a crowd of them--and then pushed the cars up
along the Allegheny Valley track, and when they would come to a car
afire--one man I noticed particularly jump up on a car, and stop it
alongside of another car afire. Then when it would catch fire they
would open the brakes, and let it go down to the round-house. Then they
threw something out of the round-house, and stopped the cars there, and
then they got to throwing water out of the round-house on the cars. I
was down on the corner of Twenty-third street when two rough looking
customers came down, and asked me where the place to stop the water off
was. They said they are throwing water out of the round-house. I told
them to go to the head of Twenty-sixth street on Liberty, and that they
would see a big iron plate in the middle of the street, and that they
should lift that up, and put their hands down and stop it off. They
said they will pick us off, and they wanted to know if there was no
place in Penn street to stop the water off. I said no.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. You knew they could not stop it off?
A. Yes; I knew they were rioters, and if they went where I told them
they would shoot them, perhaps.
Q. You did not give the information for the purpose of getting the
water stopped off.
A. No; I knew that they could not stop it off.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Were these two men strangers?
A. Yes.
Q. You are very well acquainted about Pittsburgh?
A. Yes.
Q. Did this crowd--all of them--seem to be citizens?
A. Some of them did, and some did not.
Q. What were the citizens doing?
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