Forest Home Cemetery Overview
  • Home
  • Map
  • History of Forest Home Cemetery
    • Native Americans
    • Chapel
    • Bridge over the Des Plaines River
    • Eisenhower Expressway
  • Gravestones and Monuments
    • Gravestone Symbols
    • Unique Gravestone Monuments >
      • White Bronze
      • Rustic Gravestones
      • Photo-ceramic
      • Tiffany Designed Monuments
      • Druids
      • International Organization of Odd Fellows (IOOF)
    • Mausoleum
    • Ashes Scattered and Interred
    • Degradation and Theft
    • Original Deeds and Bookkeeping
  • Labor Activists
    • Haymarket Monument >
      • The Haymarket Affair
      • Haymarket Time Capsule
      • George Engel
      • Samuel Fielden
      • Louis Lingg
      • Adolph Fischer
      • Albert Parsons
      • Michael Schwab
      • August Spies
      • Oscar Neebe
    • Radical Row >
      • Eddie Balchowsky
      • Voltarine de Cleyre
      • Eugene Dennis
      • Raya Dunayevskaya
      • Joseph Dietzgen
      • William Z. Foster
      • Emma Goldmen
      • Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
      • Ben Reitman
      • Lucy Parsons
      • Franklin Rosemont
      • Ann Sosnovsky Winokur
    • Labor and Political Burials >
      • Joe Mariani
      • Cigar Makers' International
      • International Alliance of Bill Posters and Billers of America
  • People of Interest Buried in Cemetery
    • Ashbel Steele
    • Austin Family
    • Philander Barclay
    • Edwin Oscar Gale
    • Sophy and Charles Drechsler
    • Fedinand Haase
    • Doris Humphrey
    • Flora Gill
    • Dr. Clarence and Grace Hemingway
    • Dr. Frank and Phyllis Oreland
    • Augustin and Elizabeth Porter
    • Edward Hand and Lillie Morey Pitkin
    • Martha Louise Rayne
    • Origen White Herrick
    • Dr Thomas Roberts Hurlbut
    • Joseph and Betty Kettlestrings
    • Roos Family
    • James Fletcher Skinner
    • Billy Sunday
    • Adolph Westphal
  • Ethnic and Other Groupings
    • African American
    • Dutch
    • Hispanic
    • Roma (Gypsy)
    • Children
    • Military
  • Disaster Victims
    • Eastland ship disaster
    • Iroquois Theatre Fire
    • Smallpox Epidemic
    • St. Valentine's Day Massacre
  • Cemetery Tours
  • Addtional Resources
    • Forest Park Review articles

Samuel Fielden
(1846-1922)

Picture
Fielden was born into a poor, working-class family in Lancashire, England. As a child he did not go to school but operated a loom in a textile plant. In his late teens he became a Methodist preacher with a very "worldly" orientation, combining the religious zeal that he inherited from his mother with the political bent of his father. He came to New York in 1868 and the moved to Chicago in 1869, where he became active in the labor movement and headed the city's largest atheist group. He eventually became an anarchist and joined as a charter member Chicago's first Teamsters Union. In a brief trip to the south, he saw the brutal enslavement of African-Americans under the sharecropping system after the Civil War, and was greatly disturbed. In the 1870's, Fielden worked for a while dredging the Sag Canal.

It was a strange twist of fate that Fielden was speaking at a meeting on DesPlaines Street when the Haymarket bomb was thrown. He had intended to merely address a group of clothing workers organized by Lucy Parsons and then come home. Instead he was arrested and imprisoned with the other Haymarket martyrs. In 1893 he was pardoned by Governor Altgeld. He later moved to La Veta, Colorado, where one of his admirers had left him a ranch. He died there at age 75, and is believed to be buried there, although county records do not show this. Fielden was married to Sarah and the couple had 2 children. He is the only one of the Haymarket Eight not buried at Forest Home Cemetery.


Additional Resources

  • Autobiography of Samuel Fielden
  • Testimony of Samuel Fielden, Illinois v. August Spies, Trial Transcript, Vol. M, 308-365, August 6, 1886.
  • The Accused the Accusers: The Famous Speeches of the Chicago Anarchists in Court: On October 7th, 8th, and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois. Chicago: Socialistic Publishing Society, n.d. [1886].
More information on: George Engel ○ Adolph Fischer ○ Louis Lingg ○ Albert Parsons ○ Michael Schwab ○ August Spies ○ Oscar Neebe
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.