Something happened on the 24th of July, 1871 that has several facets; about the building of the Buffalo parks, about a part of our community of which a great portion of its history has been hidden, about a flaw in our city’s society which is still too evident today, and also a glimpse into the justice and righteousness that has lived beside that flaw both then and now.
The following day, the Buffalo Express reported on an incident which occurred that day that it rightfully termed “outrageous”. It headed the article:
“Something like the Ku Klux.
A gentleman who was an eye-witness of it gives us an account of what seems to have been an outrageous affair, occurring last evening between six and seven o’clock. It seems that a party of some twenty-five colored laborers, who are employed at the Park, were coming home from their day’s work, walking peaceably down Delaware street, when a gang of rowdies, gathered from somewhere, set out to follow them, assailing them first with insulting epithets, in which “d–d n[—-]” was the most frequent, and finally throwing stones at their party. This abuse of the negroes, who had given no offense, was kept up until they reached the vicinity of St. Louis church, on Main street. There the rowdies, as our informant says, were joined by two policemen from the Cold Springs Precinct, in citizen’s clothes, who encouraged them in their demonstrations of hostility toward the colored men, and the latter were treated with so much violence that several of them made a defensive stand. Something of a fight thereupon occurred, and no sooner had that result been reached than the policemen, suddenly putting on the authority which they had not thought of exercising while the rowdies were unresisted in their persecution of the blacks, made an arrest of five or six of the latter – the assailed, not the assailants – dragged them into a car and took them to the Station house, where they were probably shut up last night, to be fined or sent to the Penitentiary to-day.
If our information of the affair is correct, and we have it from good authority, it was an infamous outrage, and thoroughly exhibited the Ku Klux spirit. It would appear that some, at least, of our present Democratic police have not yet found out that the Dred Scott decision is obsolete, and that the black men have rights which white men are bound to respect.”
The accused were James Gregory, Eli Meyer, James Smith, David Metcalf, John Dewey and Francis Warren. The arresting officers were Captain Charles A. Thomas and Special Detective Michael McCarthy, both of the 6th Precinct, Buffalo Police Department. All six defendants were charged with disorderly conduct in violation of sections 5 and 6 of chapter 2 of the City Ordinances, which cover “noise in public places” and “use of profane or obscene language” respectively.
On the 31st of July, the men’s cases were brought before Buffalo Justice of the Peace Maurice Courtney, where the six men demanded a jury trial. Assembling the jury took the entire morning. The courtroom was packed, with both whites and Blacks in the gallery. While the prosecution was hoping to proceed immediately, the case was adjourned until the next morning. Assistant City Attorney represented the city; Josiah Cook, Esq., a prominent Buffalo trial attorney, represented the men charged.
The first case tried was that of Mr. Metcalf. The trial lasted the full day. The morning Buffalo Daily Courier and its associated afternoon newspaper, the Evening Courier and Republic reported extensively on the trial by providing a running digest of the testimony. A large number of witnesses testifying, including eighteen of the other Black men who had been abused in the incident. Also testifying were the two arresting police officers and several others supporting the officers, some of them apparently members of the assailing party. R. W. Thompson, Charles F. Grissam, and John Wander, in pre-trial sworn depositions (apparently made at the behest of Captain Thomas and furnished to the newspapers for publication prior to the court proceedings), described the events as wholly the fault of the Black workers. They portrayed themselves and the white persons at the scene as either neutral bystanders or as the actual victims of terrible violence initiated solely by the Black workers. They made reference to another person present with them, one Michael Hogan; at the trial, however, only Mr. Thompson and Mr. Grissam were put on the stand to testify by the prosecution.
Justice Courtney sent the case to the jury at about 6 p.m. The jury reported back very quickly, after about only ten minutes, with a verdict of “Not Guilty”. The other five cases were continued over until Friday, August 4th; when the court reconvened that day the charges against all of the remaining men were dropped. The men all being exonerated, the city was ruled responsible to reimburse the costs of every one of the six cases.
Of the men charged, little else appears in the historical records. They were employed for work as laborers at the then new Park, now known as Delaware Park, by Mr. Issac Holloway. Holloway was the contractor for the Board of Park Commissioners in excavating the lake at the park, and among his roughly employees working the site were 25 to 30 African-American workers. None of the six men arrested were enumerated at the United States Census of 1870 for Buffalo, nor the New York State Census of 1875. The only entries in the annual Buffalo City Directories were for David Metcalf, a laborer, owner of a house at 255 Elm street per the 1873 through 1875 directories. Mr. Metcalf then is noted in the Buffalo Daily Dispatch and Evening Post as having died on the street near his home on 13 March 1877 due to a ruptured blood vessel in this lung, having been ill for “about two years”. He was aged 25, and was residing at 519 Michigan street. He was survived by his wife.
Information about the complainants, bystanders, and witnesses is also limited. It appears that at least twenty, and perhaps up to forty or fifty, white persons were at the scene, either as part of the group which taunted and later attacked the workers, or as bystanders. Several are known to have been drinking at a saloon adjacent to the scene of the altercation. Captain Charles A. Thomas was a member of the police department since July of 1870, and was Captain of Precinct #6, the Cold Spring station on the west side of Main street, south of Ferry street. The Buffalo Police had been newly established, replacing the rather short lived Niagara Frontier Police Force on 1 May 1871. Police Captain Thomas was only 23 years old, a police officer since 1870, and had been in command of a precinct of about 14 men (inclusive of five vacancies) only since 16 May 1871. He resided at 812 Washington street.
The selected jurors were Jacob Ansteth, 56, a tailor; John C. Brown, 49, a shoe dealer; Calvin Brooks, 49, a blacksmith; William Montgomery, 69, a retired merchant of carpets and oilcloths (or, less likely, his son, 21, a carpet dealer); Francis S. Fitch, 45, a grocer; and Christopher P. Chamot, 42, a shoemaker. None of the jurors were African-American.
* Note: The article quoted here was taken directly from a newspaper account written in 1871. There are a number of instances in that reporting, a part of which is quoted verbatim above, where terms were used which were both then and now particularly vulgar and inflammatory; other terms were used which at that time were deemed polite and acceptable but which today are certainly not appropriate to use. That they appear here is to maintain accurately the context of the time. I apologize in advance for any offense they may rightly give, but I believe it necessary for an exact transcription of the contemporary record to be presented. – S. M. Broderick
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