On May 4, 1886, amidst the nationwide labor movement for the eight-hour day, a worker's strike was in progress. Prominent socialists called a meeting at the Haymarket Square in Chicago for the eve of May 4, to denounce the Chicago police for killing 4 striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Works the previous day. As the last speaker was finishing his address to a dwindling crowd of about 600 people at about 10 pm on that cold drizzly night, regimens of 180 police marched soldier-like down DesPlaines Street toward the speaker's wagon. They ordered the crowd to disperse, but then suddenly ad bomb was thrown into the ranks of police and mayhem broke loose with both workers and police firing on each other. 8 police and 3 civilians died as a result. This became the biggest news story in the nation, and even Europe, since Lincoln was assassinated. The alleged bomb-thrower, Rudolph Bernhardt Schnaubelt, fled and was never captured. The subsequent trial did not dwell on producing evidence to condemn or acquit the bomb-thrower, and speculation surrounds the disappearance of Rudolph. 

 

In 1938, Franz Anton Josef Schnaubelt (my great-uncle) read an article in Reader's Digest that included a letter supposedly written by Rudolph Schnaubelt admitting to the bombing and seeking to make amends. This was the first time my great uncle ever heard of a Schnaubelt outside of his own family. This spurred him to spend 30 years of painstakingly slow genealogy research on all Schnaubelts that he could find. In the age of snail mail, he made great strides in his research and had no hesitation in writing to government officials and archives in the U.S. and Europe. Through exhaustive correspondence, my great uncle discovered that the original letter (and any copies) written by Rudolph had disappeared, and could not therefore, be proved or disproved via handwriting. My great uncle Franz found other relatives of Rudolph, as well as his own, and developed the lineages of two separate Schnaubelt families. Franz never found the connection between our two lines, but was positive that one existed because of the similarities between the occupations and legends from the forefathers of both lines. Also, in his research, he uncovered the earliest 5 generations of Schnaubelts in our line, but only the direct descendants; no siblings. He felt that the connection lay in the discovery of siblings in those first five families, or in earlier generations that came from Austria. He strongly believed that the answers lay in the archives in Vienna, Kratzdorf, Olmouc, and Prague. I have picked up where my great grandfather's research left off and have launched a web site with the family trees and Franz's results, and am actively trying to find more Schnaubelts  around the globe, in effort to connect the two lines and perhaps connect all Schnaubelts around the world.

 

 I have listed and created trees for these two lines of Schnaubelts on my web site (http://web.me.com/tschnaubelt/Site_3/Welcome.html): Friedrich Schnaubelt and Edward Bernhardt Schnaubelt. I and my great uncle are in the Friedrich Schnaubelt line, and the Rudolph Bernhardt Schnaubelt from the Haymarket Riot is in the Edward Bernhardt Schnaubelt line. One of the reasons my uncle was so adamant that the two lines were somehow connected, was that the great-great grandfathers of both lines had similar stories and occupations. Both our ancestors were chief foresters for the Crown Prince of Bohemia. And both ancestors claimed the surname Schnaubelt was "assumed", and that earlier forebears came from Austria. Strange that both families (both separate lines) had the same stories!

 

Regarding Rudolph Bernhardt Schnaubelt: My uncle first became aware of Rudolph when he read an article in Reader's Digest in June of 1938 which contained a reprint of an article that had been originally printed in the Commentator in July 1937. This article contained a letter supposedly written by Rudolph to a radio talk show host , Ray G. Schroeder of Station WIL in St. Louis. In the letter Rudolph admitted to throwing the bomb at the Haymarket, and he expressed desire to make amends and give over $150,000 (his life savings) to the City of Chicago or state of Illinois. When my great uncle Franz asked his father and grandfather about Rudolph and his relation to him, they refused to talk about him, but clearly knew who he was. 

 

My uncle corresponded with Ernestine Consigny (nee Schwab), Henry Rudolph Schnaubelt, and Marc Andrew Schonitzer, all direct descendant of this lineage, who provided all information known about Rudolph Schnaubelt. According to my uncle's notes, "...after the Haymarket Riot, Rudolph immigrated to S. America where he was a "manufacturer" of agricultural implements. There is a photo taken at Smith's Studio in Chicago, which is identified as Rudolph Bernhardt Schnaubelt. The only time this picture could have been taken, if it is genuine, was between January 1885 and May 1886, when the letter states he was in Chicago. Ernestine notes that Anna, wife of Rudolph, was born in Berlin and immigrated to S. America. There is, however, a photo taken in a Buenos Aires studio, of just a woman and a baby identified as 'Christine Schnaubelt Smith'. There is also a family group photo taken in Buenos Aires, of Rudolph, a woman, a young boy, a baby, and an elderly man, identified as 'Rudolph, and his wife and her father.' This woman and the 'Christine' are very similar in appearance, but of obviously different build. In this picture Rudolph appears to be about 10 years older than the Chicago picture, which would date it about 1895. Clarence Darrow was the trial lawyer for the defendants in the Haymarket Riot. There is an implication that a 'S. American family and occupation' may have been manufactured by him to provide Rudolf with an air-tight alibi during the trial (since he was the only one in the group which wasn't immediately suspected)."