It was not easy for early immigrants who came to this country and who worked in the early Iron Works and Coal Mines . Hard enough to make a days wages when pay was low less than dollar a day and then money was extorted by the foreman giving you the job and your employer who charged you for everything. you did owe your soul to the company store as the song goes.
If you where fortunate enough to save a few dollars and start a business then you often had to deal with the Black Hand the early Mafia who wanted a piece of your business and as outlined in the story below I found on Portage Area Historical Society- Face Book Page you had to deal with thieves and robbers and in this case in 1902 they gave their very lives trying to take care of their fellow man.
As was the case in many of these early crimes in Coal Mine towns there was little to no law enforcement a town constable at most.But most likely the Iron and Coal Police little more than hired thugs by coal mine who cared less about you and all about the mine, and if you where an immigrant well they did not waste their time investigating it, in too many cases and thieves , robbers, rapists ,extortionist murderers got away with it because people where afraid to talk.
A big Thank You to Portage Area History Society for publishing such a horrific story and reminder of how things where back 100 years ago.
From -Portage Area Historical Society-
1902 - Cambria Freeman
Friday, February 13, 1902
BOARDING HOUSE BLOWS UP (House was located on North Railroad Avenue, beside what is now Kiel's Hotel)
A dastardly attempt to hide robbery and murder resulted in the
wrecking by dynamite of an Italian boarding house at Portage early
Monday morning. Two persons are dead, two are injured and a score of
others had miraculous escapes from death when the explosion let go. The
concussion broke the windows in all the buildings for nearly a block and
did some other damage.
The dead are Tony Grillo, aged 44 years,
and Mrs. Tony Grillo, aged 40 years. The injured are Ralph Tellilido, a
shoemaker, thumb pierced by a splinter; Joe Deslavo, injured about the
shoulder.
The scene of the affair was the boarding house of Tony
Grillo and his wife on Railroad street, not far from the old
Pennsylvania railroad station, in a store building owned by the Doran
brothers of Wilmore. In this building, which is a large frame structure,
two stories high, they kept a score of boarders, the latter for the
most part sleeping in the store room and the room back of it, which had
been fitted up with cots.
Grillo, his wife and three daughters -
Lucy, aged 9; Mary. Aged 7 and Rosie, aged 5 - occupied the ground floor
adjoining the store room part of the building. Immediately over this
room was another in which Tellilido and Charlie Grillo, aged 13 slept.
Michael Grillo, the oldest of the five children, slept with some of the
boarders in the other part of the house.
When the frightened
people of Portage reached the scene they found the Grillo building badly
wrecked, the walls bulging and parts of the joists and timbers lying
out in the street. They also found that some of the inmates of the house
were in the cellar, under piles of debris. The boarders in their night
clothes, rushed out of their sleeping quarters in affright.
Patrolman Henry Plummer took charge of affairs. Under his direction a
search of the ruins began, groans being heard from the cellar. The first
and second floors had been torn loose, the plaster, lath and flooring
lying in a pile in the cellar and under this heavy mass came cries for
help. Willing hands soon pulled the stuff away and the body of Mrs.
Grillo, clad in her night clothes and with a cut on her neck was found.
She was dead and as soon as this fact was established, she was laid to
one side and the work of rescuing the living went on.
Soon the
workers found little Rosie and strange to say, she was not injured, as
far as they could se. Shortly afterward more workmen brought to the
outer air, Mary and Lucy Grillo, neither of whom seemed to be hurt,
except for a few scratches. They were in their nightgowns and were
covered with the dust from plaster. When taken out they were carried
into the Union Hotel near by and given attention.
Satisfying
themselves that no more were alive under the mass the searchers soon had
Mrs. Grillo's body and that of her husband lying side by side. The
latter had a gash on the head but whether the wounds were received
through the explosion and subsequent fall into the cellar and the awful
mass of debris no one knew. Many were of the opinion that murder had
been done and the explosion was to hide the crime.
The house is a
wreck. The first and second floors in the part where Grillo and his
wife lived were torn loose and hurled upward, then falling into the
cellar, the debris of the second floor falling on top of the occupants
of the first floor and covering them up. The roof of the house was left
on and the walls were standing somewhat bulged. Quite a lot of stuff was
thrown into the streets by the force of the explosion.
Of the men injured Deslavo was hurt by the explosion forcing a
partition with great force against the cot upon which he was sleeping,
but his injuries are not serious. Tellilido and young Charles Grillo
were thrown from their beds in the second story against the ceiling of
the room and the marks where their bodies dented the plastering can be
plainly seen.
The boarders are all Italians employed about the
railroad at Portage. They had no occasion to use dynamite and none of
the explosive was known to be in the house, yet persons familiar with
its use say that at least twenty-five pounds must have been put off
under the room where Grillo and his three little girls slept. It was
stated that Grillo had between $600 and $700 and his wife $200 more in
the house, but none of the money has yet been found and the theory is
that it was stolen by some one who killed the couple and then exploded
the dynamite to cover the crime and who did not scruple to place in
jeopardy the lives of nearly a score and a half of people, including
five children.
Dr. Miller's examination of Grillo's body showed him that his head
was crushed in as if by some heavy instrument and his ribs were all
caved in. Mrs. Grillo, according to Dr. Miller, was suffocated, as the
injuries she sustained would not be sufficient to cause death.
Grillo had been a resident of Portage for twelve years. He conducted a
fruit store in a room in the Exchange Hotel building, where he did a
thriving business. He and his wife were hard working people and were
well thought of in Portage.
