All but the Furnacemen: A Tale of the Wild Midwest

Content warning: Kidnapping, brothels, human trafficking, abuse, forced prostitution, violence, murder. This is a true story. 

August 1880, Garden Peninsula, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States of America 

The steam train that ran on the Sac Bay–Fayette track was chugging southward on a morning run when Louis Follo, the fireman, noticed a movement in the ditch outside. He leaned out of the train to see what kind of an animal was down there, and realized his mistake.

"Stop the engine!” Follo shouted to Antone Beneshek, the engineer. "There's a girl down there!"

With a squeal of metal on metal, Beneshek engaged the brakes and the great iron wheels slowed their rolling until they halted. Both engineer and fireman jumped down and approached the young woman.

Her hair was filthy and bedraggled, as were her clothes. She was terrified, weak, and ill. They lifted her up into the engine and ran it backwards immediately, all the way to Fayette. Beneshek paid for a room and care for the girl at the Shelton House, a fine hotel run by upstanding citizens.

Word about the incident spread from Beneshek through Fayette: The town had seen the young lady before. She had come from Milwaukee to answer a newspaper advertisement. According to her, a man named Jim Summers was looking for a young woman to be a companion for his sick wife, and good pay was promised. She had been directed to head 1-and-a-half miles south of town to find the man she was looking for.

The young lady’s brief coming and going had caused a stir in town, for Jim Summers had no wife, and his “home” which the girl had asked directions to was in fact his saloon and brothel, the Hole in the Ground.

On arriving there she had been made a prisoner and was only found in the ditch because she had escaped. 

The Hole in the Ground and places like it had long been despised by most of the people of the area. Fayette was an iron-smelting town, and the land it sat on was owned by the Jackson Iron Company, which prohibited any saloon from being opened on the company premises. The only exception was the establishment belonging to Fred Hinks, also known as Pig Iron Fred. Fred had been a loyal company worker until he was injured in a work accident. Because he was now incapable of the work needed, he was allowed to open the only lawful saloon in Fayette. Jim Summers and his gang often stopped in at Pig Iron Fred's for a legal drink. 

Meanwhile, everyone involved in the less legal liquor business set up south of town on the beach, rowing out to liquor running ships so as to avoid the Jackson Iron Company guards in the harbor. Usually, along with selling illegal liquor came hosting women of ill repute. Partaking of either made the partaker disreputable as well. Visiting lumberjacks and mariners didn’t care about their local reputations. Some men of the town didn't seem to, either.

Shortly after the young lady had been put to bed, Jim Summers drove up to the Shelton House in a buckboard wagon and went in. He came out again dragging the girl, and disappeared down Cedar Avenue with her. 

Indignation about the luring, abusing, and now brazen kidnapping of the girl ran through the town like a wildfire. The flames of anger fanned higher and higher as the day went on. By afternoon, the rage had coalesced into a resolve to change things once and for all time. 

A mob of able-bodied men gathered, and kept gathering, until it seemed to 15-year-old Joe Clifton there were at least 500 there, many armed.

At 7 o’clock in the evening, they set off. The scarlet light of the sinking sun shone on the angrily-lined, frowning faces and the dark steel of gun barrels. Men and boys without guns carried other weapons, whether forest-scavenged cudgels or kitchen-scavenged brooms with heavy handles. 

Along Cedar Avenue they marched, south, out of town, the way Summers had taken the girl. The only men left in Fayette were the ones necessary to keep the fires burning in the smelting furnaces. 

The mob stopped at Pig Iron Fred's to see if he had seen Summers. Indeed Fred had. Summers and his gang had beaten up Pig Iron and thoroughly wrecked his saloon. The mob marched on. 

Where the road and the railroad track began to climb the bluff, the men turned and dropped down onto the beach. The shadow of the bluff fell over them, and above their heads log houses overhanging the edge perched on timber braces. 

The Hole in the Ground was surrounded by a high wooden fence. They broke through the gate and surrounded the building to prevent any escapes. Then some entered the saloon. 

Summers was in the main room. On seeing the invaders come through the door, he tried to get behind the bar counter, where he kept loaded Winchester rifles and revolvers. The Fayette men were too quick for the human snake. They caught the man and commenced beating and kicking him as they dragged him out of doors. They only left off when a young Hugh Stevens demanded they not assault a dead body. 

Pandemonium reigned. Shots were fired. The women on the upper level were screaming. Though Joe Clifton would later tell the story of that night, he never could tell exactly what happened, for he never knew himself. He did think that some members of the gang besides Summers must have been killed, on account of all the gunfire he later remembered hearing. 

After finishing with Summers, the vigilantes trooped upstairs and turned everything upside down and inside out looking for the treasure Summers was rumored to have. In the room of one of the girls of the house, who was called Fatty, there was found $2,000 in gold, silver, and bills. 

This the men of Fayette took and divided among the women. Full half was given to the girl from Milwaukee; her name is not known to this day. Perhap that is better for her privacy. The other half was divided among the rest of the women in the house, and they were all told to take themselves away at once. 

The scarlet light of fire flickered over the tired faces of the vigilantes as the Hole in the Ground burned down. In Fayette, it was faintly visible as a light like sunset.