> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thestreatorstandard.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Streator Poisoning Mystery of 1877 - URL: https://www.thestreatorstandard.com/f/the-streator-poisoning-mystery-of-1877/ - Published: 2026-10-25T18:10:56.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T18:10:56.000Z - Description: Nearly sixty coal miners became violently ill during lunch. Newspapers across the country reported an attempted mass murder, but the mystery was never solved. - Author: The Streator Standard - Tags: History On Monday, May 14, 1877, a group of coal miners working beneath Streator stopped for their noon meal. Their dinners had been prepared the previous afternoon in the company cookhouse, packed into individual pails, and left overnight in the dining room of the mine headquarters. The following morning, the pails were carried underground and kept in the men's rooms until lunchtime. Within three to five minutes of eating, men began suffering violent stomach cramps and vomiting. Some became so sick they had to be hoisted to the surface. By four o'clock that afternoon, nearly sixty workers at Shaft No. 2 of the Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coal Company had fallen ill. Physicians were summoned, and a company building was converted into a temporary hospital. Dr. Finley, one of the first doctors to examine the men, believed they had been poisoned with arsenic. Other physicians were called, antidotes were administered, and special police were stationed to guard the building. The circumstances suggested something sinister. All the victims were replacement workers brought to Streator during a recent coal strike. The dispute had ended only a week earlier, and the men whose jobs they had temporarily taken were now working alongside them. Suspicion quickly fell upon the former strikers. By the following morning, newspapers hundreds of miles from Streator were reporting an attempted mass murder. Several victims were expected to die, and the supposed motive seemed obvious. But every man survived. And before long, even the nature of the poison was being disputed. The trouble had begun several weeks earlier over a proposed wage reduction. Streator was still a young town in 1877, although coal had already transformed the settlement once known as Hardscrabble into a growing industrial community. Its mines attracted workers from across the United States and Europe, many hoping to find steady employment and better wages. Mining was difficult, dangerous work. The men generally earned their wages according to the amount of coal they produced, supplying their own tools and blasting powder. Their winter rate had been ninety cents per ton, with seventy cents paid during the summer. In March, the coal company announced that the winter rate would be reduced to eighty cents. The miners refused the new terms, and a strike followed. The company brought in replacements from Chicago and elsewhere, housing them near Shaft No. 2 in a two-story headquarters building, railroad cars, and a machine shop. Special police and Pinkerton agents were employed to protect company property. The replacements received one dollar a day and board. They were known as "blacklegs," the customary name for men willing to work during a strike. Many were hardly prosperous themselves. The Streator Free Press later described the newcomers as men of numerous nationalities, often heads of families driven nearly to desperation while looking for employment. Accounts of the strike differed considerably. One Springfield newspaper described a reign of terror, claiming as many as two thousand miners paraded through the streets at night. The Bloomington Weekly Leader ridiculed a Chicago correspondent for describing an army of wild miners with blood in their eyes. According to the Leader, no such excitement existed. By the first week of May, the dispute was largely settled. The striking miners agreed to return under the company's terms, provided all former employees were taken back. Most resumed work on May 7, although about one hundred replacements remained at Shaft No. 2\. The two groups worked in the same mine but reportedly took their meals separately. The Pinkerton guards were withdrawn on Saturday, May 12, just two days before the mysterious illness. The fact that only the replacement workers had become sick immediately raised questions about whether someone had deliberately tampered with their food. But the meals had been prepared by company employees, stored on company property, and kept in buildings that had been guarded during the strike. No one had been seen adding anything to the food, and no suspect had been identified. Those uncertainties did little to slow the newspapers. The Chicago Tribune published the story under the headline "Coaled Poison." The Chicago Inter Ocean called it "A Horrid Deed." The Inter Ocean reported that Americans, Scots, Germans, and Swedes had been affected, but no Irishmen. Irish miners had figured prominently in labor troubles elsewhere, particularly in Pennsylvania, and the observation appeared to strengthen suspicions against the striking workers. The Free Press disputed that account, pointing out that one of the most seriously affected men was Irish. Among the other victims was J. B. Gibson, a Scotsman with an unusual history. According to the Free Press, Gibson had once worked as a government inspector of liquors before being drugged in London and shipped to New York. He eventually found himself working in a Streator coal mine, intending to remain only until June 1. The poisoning attracted attention far beyond Illinois. Newspapers in New York, Boston, St. Louis, San Francisco, and numerous smaller communities carried accounts of the affair. The reports even reached Canada. A search of digitized newspaper archives identifies at least 185 page matches involving the Streator miners during the first week. Labor disputes were receiving considerable coverage, and in Pennsylvania, the trials of men associated with the Molly Maguires, a secret organization linked to violence in the coal fields, were approaching their conclusion. The Streator incident seemed to offer another example of the dangers of industrial unrest. A St. Louis newspaper described the supposed poisoning as evidence of the "pitiless cruelty" of striking combinations. Other editors drew similar conclusions about the lengths to which workers might go during labor disputes. Yet even the Tribune's original report acknowledged that the evidence against the striking miners was circumstantial. Back in Streator, the Free Press devoted extensive coverage to the affair under the heading "DIABOLISM," declaring that it would furnish the saddest page in the town's history. By the time that account appeared on May 19, however, all the victims were considered out of danger. The men whom newspapers had feared would die were recovering, and another local paper was already questioning whether arsenic had been involved at all. The Streator Monitor suggested that the illness might have been caused by cheap green tea furnished by the coal company. Its theory, reprinted in the Pontiac Sentinel on May 23, acknowledged that the physicians disagreed and that the cause remained uncertain. The Ottawa Free Trader had initially accepted the arsenic diagnosis. Its first detailed account suggested that whoever administered the poison had used too much. The resulting vomiting, the paper explained, had expelled the substance before a fatal quantity could be absorbed. A week later, the Free Trader was asking whether anyone had actually established that arsenic was responsible. Had the tea or coffee been analyzed? Was there a satisfactory chemical examination proving that poison had been present? The newspaper also noted that the meals had been prepared by the company's own servants, in its own kitchen, on premises to which outsiders supposedly had little access. Then, on June 2, the Free Trader announced that further investigation had revealed the substance was not arsenic after all. It was tartar emetic. Tartar emetic was a medicinal compound containing antimony, used to induce vomiting. It could also be dangerous and potentially fatal in sufficiently large quantities. The new explanation offered another possible cause for the sudden illness, but it did little to establish whether anything had been deliberately added to the meals. The Free Press rejected the report. Its editors maintained that local doctors and druggists had performed tests producing indications of arsenic poisoning. No conclusive laboratory report has been located among the surviving accounts, and the newspapers continued their disagreement. The Monitor was particularly skeptical. In a passage reprinted by the Morris Reformer on June 21, it observed: "Whatever was the matter of the sick men is a matter of speculation; and will probably remain so." Without satisfactory tests, the Monitor cautioned, the competing explanations might all be wrong. The disagreement eventually extended beyond the cause of the illness to the question of who might have been responsible. In passages quoted by the Free Press, the Monitor suggested that if tartar emetic had been administered deliberately, the person responsible might have possessed the resources and opportunity to arrange it. The Free Press interpreted this as an accusation against officials of the coal company. Its editors demanded to know whom the Monitor suspected. Was it W. S. Cherry, the general superintendent? Mr. Stephens, the company secretary? Mr. Goddard, the superintendent at Shaft No. 2? Had someone in the company's Chicago offices sent poison to Streator? The Monitor had named no culprit, and no evidence establishing the responsibility of any company official emerged. The quarrel continued through June. The Free Press maintained that arsenic had been involved. The Monitor reportedly considered other possibilities, including unwholesome food made worse by ipecac, another substance capable of causing vomiting. Even among the newspapers closest to the affair, there was no agreement about what had happened. By July 7, the Free Press was still arguing that somebody must have been responsible, whether a cook, miner, company officer, or someone else. No suspect had been identified. In the meantime, life at the mines had returned to normal. June 15 was the first payday under the new wage arrangement, and the company continued its operations. Elsewhere, the country's labor troubles were growing worse. Ten men associated with the Molly Maguires were executed in Pennsylvania on June 21\. The following month, a railroad strike spread across much of the United States, bringing widespread disorder and violence. The Streator affair gradually disappeared from the newspapers. The original accusations had reached readers throughout the United States and Canada, but the subsequent disagreements received much less attention. A search of digitized newspapers finds more than 400 pages mentioning poison and Streator in 1877\. The tartar-emetic explanation appears on five, four of them printed in Streator. No arrest or prosecution has been found in the newspaper records examined through the end of 1878\. Nor has a conclusive chemical analysis been located establishing what, if anything, had been added to the miners' meals. The surviving accounts offer several possibilities: arsenic, tartar emetic, cheap green tea, spoiled food, or another substance capable of causing vomiting. Suspicions had fallen upon striking miners, replacement workers, and even company officials, but none was established. ![Map of coal mine workings beneath Streator, Illinois, with the approximate site of Shaft No. 2 circled](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e9/ce/e9cef966-7d64-4cad-8a00-a2753d6b59d3/content/images/2026/10/Streator-CWV-mine-map-Shaft-No2-circled-ISGS.jpg) Undated microfilm map of the Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coal Company's underground workings beneath Streator. The circle marks the approximate location of the first Shaft No. 2, which state records place in the northeast quarter of Section 36: on the east side of town, a couple of blocks south of East Bridge Street near the 900–1000 blocks. Source: Illinois State Geological Survey. The Streator Monitor had predicted in June that the matter would probably remain one of speculation. Nearly 150 years later, no settled explanation has emerged. --- *Historical sources: Streator Free Press, May 19 and 26, June 9, 23 and 30, and July 7, 1877; Ottawa Free Trader, May 12, 19 and 26, and June 2, 1877; Chicago Tribune and Chicago Inter Ocean, May 15, 1877; Bloomington Weekly Leader, May 3 and 17, 1877; Pontiac Sentinel, May 23, 1877; Morris Reformer, June 21, 1877; and Workingman's Advocate, May 19, 1877\. The Streator Monitor's views are documented through contemporary reprints and quotations.*