Biography
J. S. Sanders led the Colorado contingent of Coxey’s Army, the 1894 unemployed-workers’ protest movement. Contemporary reporting individually places him under federal arrest at Scott City, Kansas, and in guarded custody at Topeka in May 1894. Exact custody admission, release and completed duration remain unknown.
The May 17, 1894 Chase County Courant reports this Colorado commonweal leader as J. S. Saunders in “The Army Captured” and J. S. Sanders in “The Captives.” The Scott City dispatch dated May 11 describes his surrender to United States Marshal S. F. Neely the previous evening. The Topeka dispatch dated May 12 reports arrival the previous afternoon, confinement in locked railway cars and then a camp surrounded by deputy marshals. The May 11 dispatch describes him as thirty-nine years old and born in Green County, Missouri; no birth date is inferred from this dated age report. These reports establish actual custody across several calendar dates, rather than a sentence alone. They do not establish the day of jail admission, the release endpoint or completed time served. Group sentences and later bail episodes are not merged into this stay.
Chase County Courant, May 17, 1894, scan printed page 9, columns 5–6.
