Rum Riot Part 3: City Hall and the Riot Itself
Discussed in this Post:
Portland’s City Halls
Events of the 1855 Rum RIot
If you know Portland, you may be picturing our beautiful city hall as the site if these events. However, our city hall was built from 1909 to 1912. It was inspired by the New York City Hall and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Lead architect John M. Carrere considered it one of his finest works. But obviously it is not the site of the Rum Riot of 1855.
The current City Hall was built to replace one on the same site that burned in 1908. This one was built to replace one on the same site that burned in the great fire of 1866. That one was built in 1862. So, none of the three City Halls on the current site are the scene of the riot. By the way, the really cool picture of the City Hall Rum Room sometimes used to illustrate articles about the riot, is not from 1855 either, it is from our modern City Hall in 1930.
In 1855 City Hall was located in the market building that gave the name to Market Square, approximately where the Soldiers and Sailors Monument is now.
Imagine, if you will, a crowd of drunk young men and boys attacking the Middle St. side as daylight fades, and the Mayor and his minions using an entrance from the Congress St. side.
The Riot
According to a witness, William C. Ten Broeck, the crowd "seemed to be throwing bricks occasionally, but they did not appear to have any organization -- there did not appear to be any leader.” Nevertheless, Ring, City Marshal Worthy Barrows and the non uniformed police force were no match for the crowd. “Warnings were answered with insults; attempts to disperse the crowd aroused only excitement and threats; the ringleaders arrested were rescued by their fellow-rioters, and finally the marshal reported to the mayor his inability to maintain the peace with the force under his command,” Dow later said.
The ringing of the fire bell, when there turned out to be no fire, brought more men to the scene. Estimates of crowd size ran as high as 3000, though it seems fewer than a hundred men engaged in active rioting. Dow was later criticized for inadequate efforts to disperse the crowd; his orders to the Marshal emphasized protecting the stores of alcohol. The Marshal and his men entered the City Hall from the far side, and held the rioters off with pistols.
Meanwhile Mayor Dow issued a an order calling out Captain Greenʼs Portland Light Guard. He met them at their armory and and ordered them "armed and equipped with cartridges as the law directs.” One, William Winship, objected,"I asked him if it was not according to all military usages and law to fire blank cartridges over the heads of the populace first and to command them to disperse. He replied, 'we know what we are abut sir, we've consulted the law sir,ʼ and I then took a chair and sat down."
Dow led the few Light Guards on hand and willing out, but even as they approached the mob some were injured by thrown stones. Mayor Dow ordered the assembly to disperse or be fired upon, then quickly ordered Captain Green to have his men fire. Ten Broeck testified, “I heard someone come into the crowd, who said, 'I order you to disperse!' A short time afterward, I heard some person say, 'Soldiers, do your duty.'” Green hesitated, and Dow gave the order himself, but the Guards did not fire. Instead they left the scene.
Encouraged by the troopsʼ departure, the crowd grew more aggressive. They attacked the door of the storage room. Ten Broeck said, “They had a plank and were trying to stave in the door.” From inside, the police scared them off with pistols, firing above their heads.Then a seeming leader, “tried to unbolt the door on the inside, by introducing his arm through the window of the door, from which the shutter had been purposely taken,” testified Marshal Barrows. “As the leader of the riot pulled the cross-bar, I fired a pistol high over his head. The cry was then 'the way is clear, rush forward.'
“We lowered our pistols and fired again and again -- I think three rounds in succession. The words, I think, were: --'Blank cartridges, God damn them, the way is clear. Rush forward!' I suppose no one was hit in the first fire. There was also language that 'we were damned cowards, and daren't fire.'”
Joseph A. Ware testified, "the man who forced the door open jumped through the glass part of the door into the building, and in a moment the door flew open. There were two or three others tugging at it. Only one or two besides him entered the room. Only he went farther than two feet beyond the threshold. He may have gone five feet.
“They did not fire for, say 10 seconds after the door was forced open. They fired once while it was being forced open. This man threw up his hands at the first fire after the door was open."
“I saw a man shot in the head,” said Van Broeck.
Meanwhile Mayor Dow had found another military company, the Rifle Guards, armed them, and brought them to the scene. Entering the Agency storeroom from the other side, they stepped forward a few feet, and fired upon the crowd from a dark room, without a word of warning, and through a door nearly closed, which prevented the crowd from seeing, and at the same time sheltered the military from the missiles of the mob.
A man fell, shot dead. James Crawford saw it from Congress Street, “I heard a discharge of some firearms and saw a man in the act of falling. He sank as if his knees gave way." Nelson Leighton was close by and claimed, "The man was standing about middle way on the sidewalk from the door to the street. Wasn't doing any thing as I know of. He began to tumble round, and I caught him.”
Now the crowd fled. The Rifle Guards, divided into squads, began to patrol the area, making arrests.