On a rainy Tuesday evening, October 8, 1861, working class men gathered at the taverns and barrooms lining Minersville Street in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

This neighborhood, just to the west of the Schuylkill County courthouse and county prison, was a tough neighborhood to say the least.

But this was not just any night. It was election night across Pennsylvania, with local and state elections happening amid the political turmoil of Civil War’s first year.

That energy boiled over at Betz’s Tavern and resulted in a brawl that is a good representative of the nearly ever-present violence witnessed in Schuylkill County and the Coal Region during the 1860s.

From the Miners’ Journal newspaper:

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On Tuesday evening last, just as the polls of the North-west Ward closed, there was a row at Betz’s Tavern, participated in by quite a number of persons, during which stones, clubs, bottles, etc. were freely used, to the detriment of sundry heads.

The house was finally closed after some damage had been done to the barroom. Mr. Betz was injured by being struck on the head with a stone.

No arrests were made.

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(Image: Illustration of the inside of a tavern in the 19th century – Philadelphia Museum of Art)

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