Certain areas of the village’s history have been blessed by an abundance of journalistic coverage, written records, and even diaries and letters that have been preserved over the decades. In more than a few instances, it can be said with the clarity of a razor’s edge what was happening in town. The 1890s were decidedly not one of these times. It is exceptionally hard for the modern researcher to gain insight with much clarity into what was taking place in those days due to a dearth of the above-mentioned items. One event of that decade, however, stands out grimly. Pulling back the curtain of the ages, it can be seen that April 25th, 1892 was one of the unluckiest days in Mokena’s history.
From the Massacre of Wounded Knee at the end of 1890, to the Panic of 1893 that resulted in a devastating economic depression, the 1890s were a period of malaise. The Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago showcased many innovations that are still familiar to us today, but at the same time, birthed H.H. Holmes, an infamous American con man and serial killer. In Mokena, economic problems and the dearth of good roads lead the population to drop to its lowest point, 281 residents, by the end of the decade. Monday, April 25th, 1892 may very well have been the beginning of the downward spiral. Gently put, it was a day that got off on the wrong foot. Between three and four o’clock that inky dark morning, something started a fire in the wood frame meat market of Wesley Kennedy. Some were later of the opinion that it had to have been caused by a spark from the funnel of a passing locomotive; whatever it was, no one ever got to the bottom of it. As it happened in the middle of the night, the flames were making short work of the small building by the time a neighbor across the street spotted them. Word of mouth of the impending disaster spread through town in no time flat, and before long, most of the village was on the scene, as were a bucket brigade and the village’s hand engine, the only real firefighting equipment Mokena could muster at the time.
Front Street looking east from Mokena Street, circa 1910. The two buildings decimated in the 1892 fire stood on the corner on the right side of this image, with the structure furthest to the right later replacing one of them.
Standing on the southeast corner of Front and Mokena Streets, the growing flames made the jump from the meat market to the two-story building next door like a knife through hot butter, a two-story structure used by James Ducker as a general store. So quick was the blaze in devouring both buildings that Ducker was barely able to save any of his merchandise. Much sweat was exerted in trying to save the surrounding properties, which were “scorched more or less”, with the glass windows in two of them shattering from the intense heat. Despite the valiant efforts of the townfolk, the two primary buildings were unable to be saved, and ultimately went up in smoke. It was estimated that the total loss of both properties came out to about $15,000, or around half a million dollars in today’s money. In its coverage of the conflagration, the Joliet Weekly News didn’t beat around the bush, stating succinctly that “the fire was really a bad thing for the village.” To add insult to injury, these weren’t just any buildings that had been destroyed, but two that were considered old, historic landmarks of Mokena.
By the time the sun rose that spring day, many exhausted Mokenians wiped their brows and caught their breath, thinking that the worst of it was over. Little did they know that they still hadn’t seen the end of it.
At the center of the next phase in the day’s catastrophe was John A. Hatch, a man who had paid his dues and earned the respect of his fellow Mokenians. Hatch was the son of some of the earliest settlers to Frankfort Township, and as a young man, he marched in Abraham Lincoln’s army during the Civil War, where he earned distinction at the siege of Vicksburg. He moved around a little after the war, but eventually came home to Mokena, where he planted his roots. After working in one of Mokena’s mercantile stores, he purchased the business and carried it on himself, before also branching out into handling grain, feed, and coal, also coming to build the village’s new grain elevator in 1884. Hatch was esteemed enough by the townfolk to be elected our community’s first village clerk upon the incorporation of Mokena in 1880. Those we knew John Hatch described him as a “peaceable citizen, (but) not very strong physically”, who was the father of eight children, who in 1892 ranged in age from 25 to 3.
He wore many hats in town, one of which was that of police magistrate, a duty that required Hatch in the days before the existence of the Mokena Police Department to oversee cases in which law breakers were brought before him by the village constable. The historical record shows that he had run-ins with men such as brothers Christian and Conrad Sippel, a general merchant in town and nearby farmer respectively, as well as Paul Lorenz and Jacob Weber, the second of which being the Sippels’ brother-in-law. While said record is foggy as to what exactly brought them into Hatch’s court, all of them had had infractions in the past involving drunken mayhem. Discontent and rage had been smoldering beneath the surface, as the guilty parties were of the opinion that Hatch’s judgements upon them had been heavy-handed. The lust for revenge had been brewing in these men, and on the morning of the dreadful fire, were deep into their firewater, which in the words of a contemporary, “was just enough to make them ugly.”
John A. Hatch of Mokena, circa 1880. Our village's history cannot be told without him.
Around one o’clock on the afternoon of the fire, Paul Lorenz went into John Hatch’s store bent on devilment. He paraded in, and began “singing, dancing and cursing” the storekeeper. Lucky for Hatch, none other than village constable Nick Peisen happened to also be on the premises at the time. Peisen, a barber and linen weaver by trade, made for Lorenz with the aim to hustle him out of the business. Who at this point should materialize, other than the Sippels and Jacob Weber, who together ganged up on the constable, brusquely knocking him down. Hatch began calling for help, and to his aid rushed Charles Geddes and the patriotically named A. Lincoln Jones, the 31-year-old son of a local farmer who just went by Link. Before they could jump into the growing melee, the marauders had completely ransacked the store, with three display cases holding candy and cigars being “kicked into smithereens”. The destruction spilled into the street, with “volleys of stones” being thrown through the front windows, along with dozens of buckets that were still standing on the street from the morning’s blaze. Somewhere in the fracas, one of the attackers landed a punch on John Hatch that knocked him out, upon which some good Samaritans carried him to his house on Mokena Street.
As the situation went to the dogs, somebody at the nearby Rock Island depot telegraphed to Chicago that the village was in the hands of a violent mob. Postmaster Ozias McGovney’s daughters fled to a neighbor’s where they went into hiding. At first the rioters made their point, laying waste to Hatch’s store and putting him out of commission, but the tide was turned by those who responded to his cries. Constable Peisen used his heavy iron handcuffs in self defense against Paul Lorenz who wouldn’t submit to arrest, while Jacob Webber, in the words of the Joliet News in a post battle report, made “the worst appearance of the lot” as Link Jones had thrown him into the street on his face and jumped on him, “mashing his nose badly on the stones.” Christian Sippel got nasty lashes on his head from Peisen’s handcuffs, and bad lacerations on his hands from broken glass. Nevertheless, the raiders made a final push, and chased Hatch’s helpers from the property and managed to pursue them, eventually losing them in the fog of battle.
A few hours later, the attackers, who in the meantime had their wounds bandaged up, came back to the battlefield to survey the damage, but caused no further trouble. One media report mentions unnamed “officials” taking control of the situation and demanding the bloody miscreants to surrender, but that they would rather “die first.” As things slowly cooled down, the call for help from Chicago was rescinded. Nevertheless, arrest warrants for the four rioters were taken out in the county seat, and the Joliet Weekly News wrote that “it is expected there will be plenty of trouble before the end is reached.”
The dust was settling in Mokena, and once the press got ahold of the story, just about every detail of the already harrowing case was blown wildly out of proportion. The events were quickly spun into those of ethnic discord, a tale of Germans versus Americans. The Joliet Weekly News gave the most level-headed, thorough reportage, calling the fight a “lively scrimmage.” The morning’s fire was played up by some, with an Indiana paper having “the town on fire and threatened with destruction,” while the Chicago Tribune had the scrape in John Hatch’s store “threatening to finish what few buildings were left and throw the inhabitants into the pyre.” Extensive and vivid coverage was given by the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, a Chicago publication that was the foremost German-language paper of today’s Midwest. In Teutonic words, they called the attackers a “drunken band of thugs,” and also went into detail on the damage inflicted on the building, describing a wall of an enclosure inside that housed the post office being torn down and “the shop…fully put under water and destroyed” while the contents of the post office “scattered here and there in every direction.”
Memories were dusted off from 28 years before of the great Mokena riot of 1864, (a gruesome event also detailed in these pages), and inevitably the Joliet press made comparisons. While there were commonalities in that both involved wanton property destruction, the big difference between the two events was that in 1892, mercifully, no lives were lost. Most upright Mokenians were incensed at the treatment of John Hatch, and over a year later, in the fall of 1893, the Sippel brothers and Jacob Weber found their case, one of assault and battery, on the docket at the courthouse in Joliet. The Weekly News kept the matter in its periphery, and noted that it was “being dragged through several terms of court” until it was ultimately dismissed by the state’s attorney over Christmastime 1894, over two years after the crime happened. So it was, that the attackers felt no legal repercussions for their reprehensible actions.
To a modern-day reader, the saga of the 1892 riot poses a few questions, perhaps most prominently, where exactly in Mokena did this happen? After the unmerciful passage of time, it’s very hard to say. John Hatch’s business was housed for many years in the time-honored building on Mokena Street that is now home to Zap Tacos, but he didn’t move the store into this building until 1901, nine years after the fact. Our erstwhile town newspaper, The News-Bulletin, was in possession of antique photograph of the historic Stoll building that stood on the northwest corner of Front and Mokena Streets for more than a century. The image was published in the September 15th, 1939 issue of the paper, and the eagle-eyed reader will notice that the charming sign over the building’s main entrance prominently displays the name of John A. Hatch. Alas, as the News-Bulletinonly hesitated a guess as to when the image was made, placing it “about 40 years ago”, or roughly 1899, it can’t be relied upon. Perhaps most interesting is a blurb that appeared in the July 13th, 1893 edition of the Mokena Phoenix Advertiser, a little more than a year after the riot; it mentions a new livery stable opening in town, and references that “they will use the store next to Moriarty’s brick saloon, formerly occupied by J.A. Hatch.” Readers of these pages will remember the Moriarty saloon as having been housed in the classic building now the home of Little Al’s Bar and Grill, therefore Hatch’s store was recently housed in either one of the old buildings to its west or east, both of which stood at this point. Could this clue settle the question? In the absence of any other evidence, it’s impossible to say at this late date.
John A. Hatch ultimately recovered from that callous beating dealt to him on that spring day in 1892 and lived comfortably, a pillar of Mokena, until the day he died in 1920 at the age of 78 years. As to the causers of the disturbance, Paul Lorenz faded into the background of history, and while it’s noted that Christian Sippel kept up his Mokena store, history also passed him by and didn’t preserve any details as to what ever happened to him. He left behind his wife Catharine, who in 1900 was called a widow, and two sons, Elmer and Christian Jr., who were both small when the riot happened. The family business survived for decades, with neither of the Sippel boys having inherited their father’s penchant for trouble. Conrad Sippel outlived all the principal players in this story by a longshot, having made it to 1940 when he passed in his 83rd year. In his heyday, he kept a watering hole in our sister town of Frankfort, as well as a farm implement business. He also held elected office, keeping a chair as highway commissioner and school trustee in neighboring Green Garden Township. Perhaps most bizarre is the fate of Jacob Weber. A lifelong Mokenian, he briefly ran a saloon on Front Street in the years after the fight. On a summer’s night in August 1904, he found himself walking back home from Frankfort, when for reasons unknown, he took shelter in Fred Baumgartner’s barn south of town. The next morning, he was found dead. At some point Weber fell out of the hay mow, plummeting 20 feet, fracturing his skull. In covering the accident, the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser noted that “in his hand, clenched in death, was a bunch of hay, indicating that he had attempted to seize hold of something that would stay his fall.” He was buried in the family plot at St. John’s Cemetery.
April 25th, 1892 is not a day that can be looked back upon through rose-tinted glasses. The disastrous fire on Front Street decimated two historic landmarks, permanently sweeping them from the landscape. The subsequent, brutal riot also stands out starkly in the foggy years of the 19th century’s last decade. Upon looking back on that day with an esteemed historian of neighboring Frankfort, she summed it up best by saying “humans are difficult creatures.”
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