Samuel Fielden
(1846-1922)
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.
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].
