Baldwin-Felts

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The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was a private detective agency in the United States, founded in the 1890s by William Gibboney Baldwin and Thomas Lafayette Felts and based in Roanoke, Virginia and Bluefield, West Virginia.

Agents were hired by railroads and other companies to investigate train robberies and other crime, but Baldwin-Felts became best known for being willing to be hired to violently attack labor union members in such places as Ludlow, Colorado and Matewan, West Virginia. Thus, the agency continued to have an extremely poor reputation among labor union members and were thought of as union busters and hired thugs.

Contents

[edit] Matewan Massacre

Seven detectives were killed in Matewan on May 19, 1920 during a shootout known as either the Matewan Massacre or the Battle of Matewan. Agents killed including Thomas Felts' brothers Albert and Lee. Three townspeople were also killed, including Matewan Mayor Testerman. Following the events in Matewan, Baldwin-Felts gunmen, including undercover agent C.E. Lively, assassinated Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield and his friend Ed Chambers on the steps of the Welch, West Virginia Courthouse in retribution for the killing of Albert and Lee Felts. Lively {1887-1977} and the others claimed "self Defense" and were acquitted

[edit] Other incidents

The agency's most famous case was the capture of Floyd Allen and his family who were involved in a courtroom shootout in Hillsville, Virginia during which 5 people died and 7 were wounded. This event was the big news in the nation from March 13, 1912 until April 15 that year when the Titanic sank.

Baldwin-Felts Detectives pursued two of the fugitives from Virginia to Des Moines, Iowa before finally capturing them. Hired by the Governor of Virginia because Virginia had no State Police force, the detectives cut a wide swath through Carroll County in their quest. Confiscating horses, performing illegal searches, tampering with the US Mail and beating witnesses, they managed to capture most of the Allens within a three week time period. Only six months elapsed before the final two were captured in Iowa.

In a case similar to the Matewan Massacre, Baldwin-Felts was also involved in the Ludlow Massacre of 1914.

[edit] Fate of the agency

Baldwin died in 1936 at age 75 and Felts a year later at age 69. Legislation outlawing the use of private detectives for the purpose of spying on workers had made such detectives less useful to mine owners.

The Baldwin-Felts agency was dissolved in 1937 and most of its files were destroyed. The largest collection of extant files is housed at the Eastern regional Coal Archives in Bluefield, West Virginia.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Estep, Francis F. "Paint and Cabin Creek Murders." In The Goldenseal Book of the West Virginia Mine Wars. Ken Sullivan, ed. Charleston, WV: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1991. ISBN 0929521579
  • Kilkeary, Desmond. "The Hatfields and the Baldwin-Felts." Chaparral. May 2005.
  • McDaniel, Brenda. "Gun Thugs and Heroes." The Roanoker Magazine. July/August 1979.
  • Smith, Robert Michael. From Blackjacks to Briefcases: A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2003. ISBN 0821414658
  • Weiss, Robert P. "Private Detectives Agencies and Labour Discipline in the United States, 1855-1946." The Historical Journal. 29:1 (1965).
  • Hadsell, Richard M. and William E. Coffey. "From Law and Order to Class Warfare: Baldwin-Felts Detectives in the Southern West Virginia Coal Fields." West Virginia History 40:3 (Spring 1979): 268-286.
  • Sherwood, Topper. "The Dust Settles: Felts Papers Offer More on Matewan." Goldenseal (Summer 1991): 39-44.