WE NEVER FORGET
Bayonne, New Jersey-July 21 & 22, 1915
John Sterancaka-18
Nicola Iwaszkiu-19
Basil Nezsko-25
Note: I have taken the names from the descriptions of the funerals by
The New York Times. Usually when reporting on the funerals, the press finally gets closer to the correct names of the fallen. More research is needed, however, and I will continue to search for better sources for the names of these labor martyrs.
Martyrs of the Bayonne Standard Oil Strike of 1915
Bayonne Standard Oil Strike
Battle of Tidewater Wall, July 22, 1915
`````
Death of John Sterancaka (Stovanchik?):
Three young strikers were killed during the Bayonne Standard Oil Strike of 1915. The first to fall was John Sterancaka (Stovanchik?) who was killed in clash with police on July 21st:
STOVANCHIK, JOHN, 18 years old; Prospect Avenue and Twenty-second Street, Bayonne; shot in the head and died in the City Hospital. The strikers believed he was shot by a policeman, but there was no evidence to corroborate this view.
The Deaths of Nicola Iwaszkiu (Mikotay Ewaski?)
and Basil Nezsko (Gieresko Woisyk?):
Two more strikers were shot and killed on July 22nd in what came to be called the Battle of Tidewater Wall:
NEW YORK, July 22.-Two men were killed today in fights between striking employes of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and armed guards at Bayonne, bringing the total deaths up to three since the inception of the strike.
The Battle of Tidewater Wall:
The battle at the Tidewater wall, July 22, 1915. Soon after this [see photograph above] crowd began hurling rocks over the Tidewater wall, gunfire broke out leaving two dead and seven wounded. This battle was the second of the day. The first had begun further east on 22nd Street in front of the Standard plant. Just before 9 am, a striker threw a lit torch into a Standard building on the corner of E. 22nd Street and Avenue J. Though it burned itself our after a half-hour, the fire must have terrified the finks trapped behind the walls of the plant.
While the flames grew, one of the finks shot Tony Bedlarski, age twenty-one, as he walked unarmed outside the Standard's wall on E. 22nd Street. Two hundred strikers standing across the street watched Tony fall, then stood quietly for a few minutes, stunned. Suddenly, Polish army veteran John Surgeon cried out and led the strikers across the street to hurl rocks at the finks. As bullets flew from behind the wall, John and Stephen Svahli fell wounded. The melee finally ended when Sheriff Eugene F. Kinkaid arrived at the scene and ordered the finks to stop shooting. He persuaded the strikers to go home by assuring them that the federal government was sending two mediators to force Standard to negotiate. Bayonne's mayor had asked Kinkaid, a former congressman, to take charge of the strike after the battle between the strikers and the Bayonne police the previous day...
After the sheriff stopped this first battle, the streets of the Hook remained quiet until these seventy-five boys began gathering in front of the Tidewater wall on E. 22nd Street near Avenue F. As this picture shows a crowd of strikers soon joined the boys to throw rocks over the wall at the finks. The finks responded by climbing onto the roof of a building behind this wall to fire their rifles into the crowd. Kinkaid again stopped the battle, but only temporarily. As he walked away, someone hurled a lit torch over the wall, and the finks began shooting again. By the time a downpour finally stopped the battle, Frank Talos, age twelve, and Steven Samarek, age thirteen, were wounded. Gieresko Woisyk, age twenty-five, was killed when a bullet pierced his heart, as was nineteen-year-old Mikotay Ewaski, who stood watching the battle from Mydosh's Cafe...
Funeral of John Sterancaka (Stovanchik?):
The strikers had planned to hold a great public funeral for John Sterancaka [Stovanchik?] the first of the three men killed in the fighting. It had been intended to have a long procession of sympathizers from his home at 99 Prospect Street to Cooper Hall, thence to St. John's Greek Church, which is in the war zone, and after ceremonies at both these places to go to the Central Railroad station and leave for the Moravian Cemetery at Port Richmond, S. I.
Sheriff Kinkead shut down on this and personally supervised the funeral. At 1:15 o'clock, [Saturday July 24th] nearly an hour before the strikers had expected the ceremonies to begin, a few of the friends of Sterancaka's family went to the house, where services were held under the direction of the Rev. Father Thomas Szabo of St. John's Church. The body was taken directly to the Staten Island Ferry and conveyed to the New Richmond cemetery. The white hearse was followed by ten carriages, thirty honorary pallbearers, and about fifty sympathizers on foot...
The Funerals of Nicola Iwaszkiu (Mikotay Ewaski?)
and Basil Nezsko (Gieresko Woisyk?):
Large and possibly belligerent funerals were talked of for the two men who were killed on Thursday, but in these cases, as in that of the funeral of the boy killed on Wednesday and buried on Saturday, the Sheriff took personal charge, and there was no disorder. At 1 P. M. [Sunday July 25th] services over the body of Nicola Iwaszkiu, 19 years old, of 415 Broadway, were held at his home by the Polish Young Men's Club, and the body was conveyed quietly to the Hudson County Cemetery in Jersey City. Basil Nezsko of 52 East Twenty-fourth Street belonged to the Russian Church at Twenty-fourth Street and the Boulevard, which is outside of the strike zone, so his funeral was held in the church at 2 o'clock, after which the body was taken to the Hudson County Cemetery.
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 22, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
The Scranton Republican
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-July 23, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
BAYONNE
Kathleen M. Middleton
Arcadia Publishing, 1995
https://books.google.com/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 25, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 26, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGE
Bayonne Standard Oil Strike,
Battle of Tidewater wall, July 22, 1915
https://books.google.com/...
For more on condition which led to the strike:
"Hellraisers Journal: Bayonne, NJ- 900 Coopers Join Stillcleaners
on Strike at Standard Oil Refinery" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
See also:
Tag: Bayonne Standard Oil Strike of 1915
http://www.dailykos.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
The Red Flag - Socialist Victory Choir
The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
-Jim Connell, 1889
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````