MOREWOOD MASSACRE (1891)

Henry Clay Frick built an empire of coal properties and coke ovens that made him the “Coke King” and the necessary but uneasy partner of Andrew Carnegie. Grandson to the owner of the distillery that made Old Overholt rye whiskey, he borrowed money from the Mellon banking family to construct coke ovens. Coal was baked originally in beehive ovens and later in vast batteries of furnaces releasing smoke and gas, leaving a dense fibrous substance of almost pure carbon that was ideal for steelmaking. The men who tended these furnaces worked 84 hours a week exposed to coal dust, heat and heavy smoke. Attempts to organize these jobs were fiercely resisted.

In 1891, Frick decided to institute a sliding scale of wages geared to the price of coke. Frick was a man who put a high value on control of the workforce. He stated: “We concluded that we would end this thing once for all, and determine whether we had a right to employ who we pleased and discharge whom we pleased.” His actions triggered marches and walkouts across the coke region. On April 2, around 3a.m., more than one thousand workers marched on the Morewood mine and coke ovens. Deputies opened fire on the column and nine men were killed. The dead were buried in the same nearby Catholic cemetery as most of the victims of the Mammoth Mine explosion.

Morewood Massacre marker, Rt. 1 19 overpass on Rt. 981, Morewood Rd., East Huntingdon Township