James Hamilton Peabody (August 21, 1852 – November 23, 1917) was the 13th and 15th governor of Colorado, and is noted by some for his public service in Cañon City and by others for his brutality in crushing the miners' strike in Cripple Creek in 1903–04.
Family background
James was the youngest of 17 children. He was born in Topsham, Vermont, where his family raised crops and children. He attended school in Vermont, and later furthered his education there at the Bryant Commercial College at Barre, and Stratton Commercial College at Burlington, Vermont. Three of his brothers fought for the Union in the American Civil War. In 1871, while James was still in business college there, his family moved to Pueblo, Colorado; after completing his degree the following year, Peabody followed his family and kept the books for the family dry goods store for three years (1872 to 1875).
Early employment
In early 1875, he moved to Cañon City, Colorado, and worked for James Clelland in his "general mercantile" store. On March 19, 1878, he married his employer's daughter, Frances Lillian Clelland, and the couple eventually had four children together (James, Clellan, Cora May, and Jessie Anne). Peabody quickly climbed the ladder at Clelland's store, becoming a manager, then a full partner, and then purchasing the store outright in 1882. In 1885, he was elected county clerk for Fremont County, Colorado, unseating the incumbent, who had held the post for 18 years.
Public service
In 1889, while still serving in the position of county clerk, Peabody helped to organize the First National Bank of Cañon City, and was elected President of the Bank in 1891. He also served Cañon City as city treasurer for two years and as alderman for two years. The mine owners used force to take over the press of the Victor Record, which had been a largely pro-union periodical, and captured strikers, who were then confined in the infamous "bullpens" or taken under guard to the Kansas border and abandoned.
The Colorado National Guard made several dozen unwarranted arrests of miners and their supporters and held many people without formal charges, some for several days. Colorado National Guard Adjutant General Sherman Bell said of the miners, "Habeas corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems." With the support of the state militia, the owners regained control of the mines, and by midsummer the strike was broken (although it was never officially terminated by the Federation). The mines reopened with non-union labor, and the labor unions lost significant power in Cripple Creek, and in the state.
A union member named Harry Orchard later wrote in a confession to Pinkerton agent James McParland that he had committed the attack at the Independence Station. He also admitted to serving as a paid informant for the Mine Owners Association, and to committing numerous other crimes.
Peabody's role in helping mine owners crush the strike at Cripple Creek and, ultimately, the union itself, is particularly ugly. The miners had conducted a nonviolent strike nine years earlier and their policy was one of nonviolence. But when Peabody, a banker, was elected governor of Colorado, Cripple Creek mine owners felt they had an ally and they could provoke the miners with impunity. The mine owners cut back hard-earned benefits and it was those cutbacks that caused the strike of 1903–04. In response to the strike, Peabody sent in The Colorado National Guard which broke into miner's homes, harassed their wives and children, and forcefully deported union men out of Cripple Creek. Peabody's militia arrested and jailed miners against whom there were no charges, often removing them from their homes. When judicial authorities objected to this illegal treatment Peabody tried to suspend the writ of habeas corpus that was being used to protect illegally-arrested miners. When miners resisted military violence, Peabody responded with martial law. His troops destroyed the offices of the press and assumed military command of Cripple Creek until both the strike and the union had been destroyed.
Attempt at re-election
thumb|right|1904 caricature of Colorado Governor James H. Peabody executed by B.S. White of American Cartoonist MagazinePeabody ran for a second term in 1904, but was vilified by his opponents, who declared "Anybody but Peabody!" and felt that he was in league with the mine owners. Peabody's opponent, Democrat Alva Adams, ripped into his handling of the Cripple Creek strike and insisted that he could handle Colorado's vicious "industrial warfare." After the election, it appeared Adams had won, but Republicans, who still controlled the state legislature, insisted that significant fraud and corruption had conspired to steal the election from Peabody (in reality, both sides had committed major violations of election law). On the day that Adams took office (March 17, 1905), the Republican-controlled legislature voted to remove him from office and reinstall Peabody, on the condition that Peabody immediately resign. He did so,