Lend your ear to story of woe

“It is only natural to look back on the history of our area through rose colored glasses. It is only natural to see the people of yesteryear as harder working, more honest, more friendly, and edging on perfection.

“It is only natural to be wrong. People have persisted in being more distinctively human than otherwise.  There have been some good, some bad — some honest and some as crooked as a corkscrew. When you read today’s story, told to me by Dale Selle shortly before his death, you will be grateful that today you, hopefully, will not hear someone say, “Lend me your ear.”)

The Hope Prospector, a paper out of Hope, Idaho ran the following story on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 1892. It was entitled, Pack River Troubles and read, “John Quigley, John Valino, James Scannell, J. G. Hawkins, Scott Monhart and other residents of our west end suburb were in the city last Monday trying to tell his honor K. Wanamaker, all about it. A keg of beer was at the bottom of the trouble, and in the scuffle an ear was lost and Mr. Hawkins found it while sweeping up the floor of his castle and brought it into town. As there is no bounty on this variety of ear, Mr. Hawkins was of the impression that there was nothing in it and the consequences are, the squire has the ear “in soak” for future reference and John Valino can come around and gaze upon his severed anatomy without cost. Messrs. Quigley and Valino became involved in an argument the subject of which we are ignorant …”

“According to the testimony there was a scrap and, although Mr. Valino had his ear bit off, no one else saw the act committed and Valino took the stand and swore that Mr. Quigley lost his reason and chewed it off. As Mr. Valino was an interested party in the transaction, he was in a position to know and no one had the temerity to contradict him and his testimony was allowed to stand. Other testimony went to show that all hands had a “jag” on and, judging from appearances of the principals and the ear, we are of the opinion that there was a decidedly rough time. After listening to the evidence of both sides, the judge decided that $300 to insure defendant the benefit of a merciful grand jury would be fitting tribute to the occasion, in default of which, Quigley was taken to Rathdrum where he languishes in durance vile.”   

On Sunday, November 6, 1892, a group of railroad workers - C.C. Brown, John Vallino, and James Scannell - had gathered in Brown’s room in the section house at “Pack River Siding” near the west end of the long Northern Pacific railroad trestle across the mouth of Pack River. This was at “Hawkins Point” on the north shore of Lake Pend Oreille. The men were relaxing with a keg of beer when Scott Monhart, a rancher who lived close by, joined this little gathering.

After the men had been in the room drinking beer for awhile and were all quite drunk, Jim Scannell went to another room and brought railroad laborer John Quigley back with him to Brown’s room. An intoxicated Quigley had been drinking with some of the other workers. All of the workers were aware of a resentment that Quigley had toward John Vallino. On the previous Sunday, the section foreman, Michael Burke, had told John Quigley that the best worker on the crew was John Vallino, the only Italian on the mostly Irish crew. Quigley disagreed with Burke but the foreman kept taunting him until Quigley called Burke a liar.

On this Sunday, Quigley was determined to prove that he was a better man than Vallino so he challenged Vallino to a fight. Vallino did not want to fight and tried to talk his way out of it. Quigley threw a punch at Vallino and Vallino grabbed hold of Quigley to protect himself. The two scuffling men fell to the floor with Vallino on top. Vallino held Quigley down and tried to get him to give up the idea of fighting, but Quigley got Vallino’s fingers in his mouth and bit down hard. Vallino yelled out in pain. Mike Burke, the foreman, came to the door and saw the men wrestling on the floor but did not try to stop the fight. James Scannell was egging Quigley on by cheering, “Kill him! Kill him!”

(Hear more about the Ear next week.)