Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 200

Price Realized: $ 1,062
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
"THERE WAS NO FUN ABOUT THIS RIOT" (NEW YORK CITY.) Chester, George M. Detailed first-hand description of the 1871 Orange Riot by a participant. Autograph Letter Signed to his mother Catherine Morell Chester of Detroit, MI. 6 pages, 10 x 8 inches, on 3 sheets of New York Daily Democrat letterhead; moderate toning, short separations at intersection of folds. New York, 16 July 1871
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This letter describes the famously ill-fated 12 July 1871 parade of Irish Protestant Orangemen who were commemorating the Battle of the Boyne. As they marched from West 29th Street down to Cooper Union, a large contingent of Irish Catholics turned out along the parade route to pelt the Orangemen with bricks and rocks; the military escort opened fire on the rioters. Three of the National Guard contingent were killed, and about 60 of the rioters.
Letter writer George Morell Chester (1838-1891) was at that time a reporter with the New York Herald, and supplementing his income with the 22nd New York State Militia, one of the five regiments assigned to protect the Orangemen. On arriving at the Orangemen's lodge, his regiment was ordered to immediately load their rifles; "one Irishman near me said to a friend 'Be Jasus, thim fellers mane bisiness.'" An initial surge was beaten back by the police, "breaking many a head with their clubs." As the parade neared Madison Square Park at 23rd Street, "a brisk fire was opened from the roofs and windows on the east side. Two members of the Ninth were killed (Page, a friend of mine, with a stone from a roof), and several others wounded. A few shots were fired by members of the Seventh at rioters in the windows and on the housetops, and then some 25 or 30 shots from the 84th. . . . The death of two of their men so excited the 9th that they poured a volley into the crowd." He also notes that "I was struck on the leg and badly bruised by a brick." Chester's account is enhanced by 3 diagrams of the regimental deployments during the parade, showing how the troops shifted in the face of resistance while doing their best to keep the Orangemen protected. Manhattan has seen quite a few riots over the years, but this was one of the most deadly.