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“Easter in St. Mary’s marked by another riot,” read the front-page headline that greeted readers of the Uniontown Morning Herald 99 years ago today.
There had been a “bloody fight” that had erupted at St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church in New Salem right after the Easter Sunday sermon.
While one of the sub-headlines said “Stories are conflicting,” it was quite clear from the article that a near melee had taken place.
It was reported that the trouble had started after there were two collection plates passed among the church’s congregation.
“The trustees say that for a time there was a full grown riot in which many blows were struck and quite a number of persons injured, many only slightly,” it was reported.
There was even some alleged gunplay.
One man “pulled a revolver from his pocket and pressed it against,” another man’s stomach.
That man wasn’t shot, but the “assailants left him bruised and bleeding in the yard within a few feet of the church. His face was covered with blood and his clothes were scarlet,” said the report.
In April of 1924, there was another unusual occurrence in a local church, but certainly not as violent.
“Radio church service held at Fairchance,” read the headline in the April 14, 1924 edition of the Morning Herald.
It was reported that the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Fairchance had been very ill.
But the congregation of the church wasn’t without a Sunday sermon the day before.
A KDKA radio broadcast from the Point Breeze Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, was piped to the “large audience at the Fairchance church.”
“The instrument was installed by the Radio and Battery Service Company of Fairchance,” so that the regular Sunday service could take place.
There was, understandably, a great deal of interest in last week’s Boston Marathon.
The event, which is held on the third Monday of April each year, is the world’s oldest annual marathon.
But only 12 years after Boston initiated its marathons, Uniontown and Connellsville had their own.
In fact, that year, there were several local marathons.
“Many expressions of approval of the Herald Marathon heard,” read the headline on the front page of the March 10, 1909 edition of the Morning Herald.
“The Marathon is a go,” said the first sentence of the story that outlined the first Fayette County event of its kind that was scheduled to take place in April of that year.
“The race will not be the full Marathon course of 26 miles, 385 yards, but will probably be one-half that distance,” said the report.
The 26-mile course was established a year earlier at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London, England.
It’s understandable that the local race would be shorter. Even the Boston Marathon was only 24 miles long, until it was lengthened in 1924.
“Bruno Pannetti, No. 23, wins big race; time 1:37,” read the bold headline on the front page of the Morning Herald on April 19, 1909.
Nearly the entire front page was taken up with marathon coverage.
Here’s why: “Entire county takes holiday for the race,” read another headline.
“Italian Who Runs Coke Drawing Machine at Thompson, No. 2, Carries Off the Silver Loving Cup in Herald’s Marathon – 50.000 People Witness the Exciting Event,” was yet another headline.
“Without fear of successful contradiction it may be stated that the largest crowd which ever witnessed any spectacle in Fayette County turned out, lining the 13-mile, 200-yard course, from end to end and congesting the start and finish,” it was reported.
Pannetti, for his efforts, won a sterling silver loving cup, and a charter membership in the Brownsville Lodge of Moose.
A little over a week later, on April 28, Connellsville had its own marathon. Except it was held entirely on a race track.
Perhaps that’s why, instead of the 50,000 people that showed up for Uniontown’s race, only 3,000 people showed up in Connellsville to see 39 runners run a fifth of a mile track – for 13 miles, and 200 yards.
Dennis W. Hickey of Dawson, who’d only finished seventh in the Uniontown race, won the Connellsville Marathon.
Enthusiasm for marathons in Fayette County already seemed to be on the wane a month later, when on May 31, the Morning Herald reported the results of the third long distance run in a month and a half.
Once again Bruno Pannetti of Thompson No. 2, crossed the finish line first, but it was also reported that “Saturday’s race benefit for the Uniontown baseball team was not the big financial success it was expected to be.”
That, despite another race that was held that day, that featured the English Champion Percy Smallwood of Wales, who, singlehandedly, took on a local relay team of five runners in a five mile race – and lost.
In late September, there was a fourth day of Fayette County marathons, with one of the races taking place between Uniontown and New Salem.
The final results of those races weren’t nearly as important as those of the previous three races.
In fact, one of the prizes handed out that day was a “suit of clothes,” for “the boy with the worst looking mug.”