Biography
Tom Myerscough, also known as Thomas Myerscough, was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1891. He worked in coal mines in England and western Pennsylvania and became a Communist organizer and president of the National Miners Union. He was arrested after the Wildwood mine picket on June 22, 1931, when deputies and mine guards opened fire on striking miners and killed Pete Zigaric. Myerscough initially faced manslaughter and incitement-to-riot charges. By July he was free on $12,500 bond and continued organizing; he returned to Pittsburgh in October to face trial. He was sentenced to two years in the Allegheny County Workhouse at Blawnox. The International Labor Defense campaigned for his release, and he and fellow prisoner Bob Young were paroled in September 1932 after serving eleven months of their sentences. Myerscough later moved to New York and became active in the Fur Dressers and Dyers Union. He died in 1971.
The Daily Worker of January 4, 1932, page 3, reports that the International Labor Defense had filed an appeal for a new trial on December 14 and was seeking bail for Myerscough, Bob Young, Joe Soch, Kitty Preselac and Mike Federoff. The court had not decided whether bail would be allowed or fixed an amount. It says these Wildwood picket-line defendants were at Blawnox Workhouse and permitted only one visitor monthly. This records continued confinement and an unsuccessful-to-date bail application, not an actual release or separate case.
The Wildwood strike report describes Myerscough held pending bail after the mass arrests. This belongs to his existing 1931 strike case and is not an additional conviction. Daily Worker, June 29, 1931, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n155-NY-jun-29-1930-DW-LOC.pdf (The local filename incorrectly says 1930; the printed masthead is June 29, 1931.)
The September 29, 1931 report places Myerscough’s arrest with James Grace at Neon the preceding Saturday, September 26. Myerscough reported that deputies took them toward the Virginia border and that he escaped while being beaten and fired upon. Grace remained in the deputies’ hands at his escape; a Lexington report of Grace’s release was explicitly still uncertain. This Kentucky seizure is geographically distinct from the existing Pennsylvania strike prosecution. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n235-NY-sep-30-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The November 27, 1931 International Labor Defense appeal names Myerscough, Thompson, Adam Ghetto, Bob Young and Stella Rasefsky among twenty-nine miners sentenced during the preceding month to long terms at Blawnox after the coal strike. It supplies neither individual numerical terms nor exact sentencing or transfer days. The source calls the institution a penitentiary; the existing Allegheny County Workhouse identification is retained. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n285-NY-nov-27-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
A letter describing the Pittsburgh May Day celebration places the National Miners Union organizer in a hospital across from West Park after removal of two pieces of cartilage from his legs. He reported being close enough to hear the gathering and was said to be recovering. This supplies health and movement biography rather than a prison admission. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n109-sect-one-may-07-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Page 1’s June 26 Pittsburgh dispatch identifies Myerscough as Communist Party section organizer on the South Side meat-strike committee. Seven committee members were arrested by detectives during butcher negotiations the previous night, June 25, facing extortion and conspiracy accusations before Magistrate Lucas. The paper says butchers offered ten-dollar contributions and police falsely claimed the committee demanded $100 to withdraw pickets. Bail was set at $1,000 each and a hearing was announced for the next day. No disposition or completed personal term is given. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n153-NAT-jun-27-DW-Q.pdf
Page 1 describes deputies allegedly aiming at him during the previous Monday’s Wildwood picketing and announces he would join the coming demonstration if bailed out in time. The prospective bail release is not treated as completed. The page 3 group photograph does not individually identify him or other pickets. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n155-NY-jun-29-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 5 reports him out under 12,500-dollar bond, charged with manslaughter and incitement to riot after the June 22 Wildwood picket-line shooting. The newspaper alleges the prosecution sought to remove the NMU organizer from the strike after deputies had tried to shoot him. This documents bail liberty by the July 24 dispatch, without an exact physical release day or measured duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n178-NY-jul-25-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3’s October 14 dispatch says he returned to Pittsburgh to face the Wildwood trial, postponed until October 20, after organizing in the Jellico–LaFollette–Caryville area. It describes the manslaughter prosecution following the picket-line shooting and announces an October 15 defense demonstration with Rebecca Grecht and Fred Biedenkapp. A trial setting is not a completed trial, conviction, prison admission or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n248-NY-oct-15-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 5 prints Jim Allander’s letter reporting Myerscough out of hospital but still on crutches and not ready for strenuous work. Donations had enabled medical and surgical treatment. This follows the earlier hospital account and is a health update, not a prison release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n123-may-23-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3 reports a Pittsburgh conference demanding his immediate release, describing the charge as sedition arising from a 1930 election-campaign speech. This differs from the existing Wildwood prosecution account and is retained as a contemporary characterization rather than silently replacing the documented case or inventing a second imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n189-NY-aug-09-1932-DW-LOC.pdf
Labor Defender, October 1932 (PDF page 21): The Blawnox roster identifies Myerscough among strike prisoners still confined under nominal two-year sentences, alongside Leo Thompson, Bob Young and Adam Getto. Its description of restricted screened visits, mail censorship and rejected books supplies contemporaneous conditions-of-confinement context, without adding a duplicate Wildwood case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n10-oct-1932-LD.pdf#page=21
The November 24, 1931 report individually lists this National Miners Union strike prisoner at Allegheny County Workhouse, Blawnox. The roster establishes actual confinement during the mine-strike repression. It does not supply an individual statutory count, exact initial arrest, physical release or completed custody duration. Daily Worker, November 24, 1931, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n282-NY-nov-24-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The September 26 dispatch reports physical release on parole that day from Allegheny County Workhouse following the Wildwood mine-picket prosecution of June 22, 1931. Two years is the imposed term, not actual two years served; the reported event dates do not support that service claim. Daily Worker, September 27, 1932, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n231-NY-sep-27-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Daily Worker, June 27, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, June 29, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, July 25, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, October 15, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 9, 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The editor identifies the author as a strike leader arrested and recently released after serving a one-year sentence in Blawnox. This rounded retrospective account differs from the separately documented September26,1932 parole after eleven months of an imposed two-year term. Both descriptions are retained as source evidence; the precise parole evidence is not overwritten with an invented twelve-month total.
