Biography
Henry Corbishley was a militant United Mine Workers local leader in the Ku Klux Klan-ridden coal town of Zeigler, Illinois. Henry Corbishley was the central defendant of the "Zeigler frame-up": twenty progressive miners indicted after a 1925 union-hall melee provoked by Klansmen. Beaten and, by the defense's account, tortured in custody, he was one of eight convicted by February 18, 1926 of assault with intent to murder and sentenced to one to fourteen years, bailed pending appeal after months inside. The ILD's Labor Defender carried the case on its covers through 1926.
In the April 1930 Labor Defender, page 78, Grace Corbishley wrote from West Frankfort that her husband Henry, secretary of the Illinois National Miners' Union, was again incarcerated in the Southern Illinois penitentiary. She said he had earlier served one year and eight days and was now required to complete what she described as a seven-year sentence. She appealed for assistance for herself and their four children. This is a family account of resumed confinement, not evidence of a separate new prosecution; its sentence description differs from the earlier one-to-fourteen-year record. The return date and subsequent release remain unresolved.
The Daily Worker of January 7, 1930, page 1, reports Corbishley taken to Chester on January 6 in connection with a proposed revocation of parole. The January 17 issue, page 2, reports that he had been returned to prison to serve the remainder of the Zeigler sentence following his National Miners Union strike activity since December 9. These are reports of renewed confinement under the existing prosecution; they do not establish a new sentence or a final release date.
Daily Worker, September 11, 1925, page 1–2, 5–6: The September 9 Zeigler report describes the preliminary hearing of miners accused after the union-hall clash. Fifteen unnamed defendants were held to the grand jury for assault with intent to kill D. B. Cobb, with $2,000 bail each immediately furnished by friends; a conspiracy charge was deferred at this stage. It identifies Henry Corbishley as the progressive union leader targeted by the opposing faction and as a forthcoming Labor Defense Day speaker. The collective fifteen-person bail statement is not treated as a named list or exact personal custody chronology. Other notices still call the group eighteen, a contemporaneous difference in counts retained rather than harmonized. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-ny/v02b-n206-NYE-sep-11-1925-DW-LOC.pdf
The July 26, 1928 Zeigler defense report places this prisoner at Menard since December 1927, while Eddie Moleski was at Pontiac. The institutional distinction and month-level custody observation do not establish uninterrupted service from the first 1926 prosecution, an exact return day or a later discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n176-NY-jul-26-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Tom Bell’s February 11 Benton trial report describes defense testimony in the Zeigler prosecution, before the verdict. It names State’s Attorney Martin and two assistants retained by Lon Fox. Witnesses disputed the prosecution’s account of the August 11 union meeting; the report’s characterization of a frame-up is attributed to the labor-defense writer. Trial attendance is not a new prison admission, and the report supplies no physical release or measured term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n028-NY-feb-13-1926-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The defense report says six witnesses placed Henry outside the hall while the confrontation occurred. It presents this as alibi evidence, rather than an adjudicated finding or a new custody date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n028-NY-feb-13-1926-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Earlier stage of the Zeigler prosecution
A September 11 Zeigler dispatch printed on the first page names Henry Corbishley among fifteen miners bound over for a grand jury after a preliminary hearing in Benton. Robert Minor’s accompanying account on page 3 describes a union meeting on August 11 and reports that an initial conspiracy-to-murder accusation was dropped while fifteen men were being prosecuted for assault with intent to kill. These are contemporary labor-defense reports of the earlier stage of the same Zeigler prosecution, not a second case or proof of the later imposed prison term actually served. The reports differ between twenty-five arrests and twenty-six initial warrants; neither collective number supplies an individual booking day. “Held for the grand jury” is a procedural description, not proof of an uninterrupted physical jail interval. The August 11 meeting date is not entered as an arrest or admission date. Existing custody fields and the separately recorded later imprisonment remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, national edition, September 12, 1925, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary political allegations are attributed to the report.
In his first-person article in the February 1929 Labor Defender, Henry Corbishley describes the year and eight days he spent in prison with the other Zeigler prisoners. This is his retrospective report of actual imprisonment, distinct from the nominal one-to-fourteen-year sentence. He identifies the Southern Illinois Penitentiary at Minard (as printed) and says remaining Zeigler charges were struck from the docket after their imprisonment. The statement does not establish the individual admission or actual discharge day; no release date is back-calculated and the duration is not assigned to every co-defendant. The reproduced Southern Illinois Penitentiary letterhead in the January 1929 issue (original PDF page 24, printed 16) individually labels Henry Corbishley and his historical register number 8168. This is not a federal BOP number. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1929/v 04 n 01-jan-1929-LD.pdf
The Daily Worker of February 18, 1926, already reported a guilty verdict in the Zeigler miners prosecution and named this defendant among the convicted miners. It described the defense motion for a new trial and announced arguments for March 29, 1926. Thus the conviction preceded March 1926. This corrects the chronology of the verdict, without establishing a different date of actual prison admission. The report gives a nominal one-to-ten-year sentence, differing from later defense reporting of one to fourteen years; that discrepancy is preserved rather than used to replace the existing term.
The December 25 West Frankfort dispatch reports Corbishley’s arrest by the state parole office during the Illinois miners’ strike. The International Labor Defense characterized it as an attempt to punish union leadership by sending him back to serve eleven or twelve remaining years. This documents a parole-enforcement arrest already reported before the later January transfer to Chester; the threatened remainder is neither a newly imposed sentence nor time actually served. No exact arrest day is supplied.
Daily Worker, September 11, 1925; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
