Draft:The Lynching of Giovanni Chiesa

Giovanni Chiesa, an Italian immigrant hired as a replacement miner, was lynched by a mob in Trumbull County, Ohio, in 1873.

Background

In 1873, coal operators' use of Italian replacements broke the Mahoning Valley miners’ strike. The labor walkout, which began on the first of the year, saw the importation of unemployed Italians from the Port of New York to the coal fields of Trumbull County in NE Ohio. Violence characterized both strikers’ and coal operators’ responses in the conflict.

The Lynching

By the third week in May, the miners’ strike had been defeated. Several Italians and a German occupied a boarding house in the Blocks, a Trumbull County mining camp run by the Church Hill Coal Company. Giovanni Chiesa, aka John Church, went to draw water from a well. He was confronted by a group of men. A scuffle broke out with an American receiving a knife wound. A mob of one to two hundred mostly Scottish and Welsh miners and their supporters formed and soon set fire to the boarding house. Upon fleeing the burning building, the residents were assaulted by members of the mob. At one point, the German warned that the violence was getting out of hand and that the constables should be called. The throng responded that it would act as the police. The German was allowed to escape. Cries went up that the Italian be killed, whereupon Chiesa was beaten with rifle butts and bricks. He was left to die in a pool of water, as reported on by the Northern Ohio Journal of August 09, 1873.

The Evidence

Dr. John McCurdy, a Youngstown physician, and Dr. Stewart dressed the victim’s wounds. The latter gave sworn testimony to the authorities. Local press interviewed several sworn eyewitnesses. A death record on the murder exists.

The Aftermath

Fifty men who participated in the riot were arrested. A dozen were indicted for arson, and sixteen were charged with murder. Matthew Morrison was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison at the state penitentiary. The whereabouts of Giovanni Chiesa’s remains are unknown. Though less than a half mile from the scene of the crime, the Church Hill Cemetery contains no record of his burial. He may have been laid to rest at the Poorhouse cemetery on the grounds of the Trumbull County Infirmary, in Warren, a dozen miles northwest of Church Hill. The deceased were usually interred in unmarked graves. The cemetery closed in 1915, and through the years, its exact location has been lost. Local and regional press covered the news of the lynching. There was an immediate shock as result of the incident, but a diplomatic row between Italy and the United States did not ensue, as would sometimes happen in later years when Italian nationals were victims of summary execution on American soil.