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The Molly Maguires were a clandestine society of Irish miners who were engaged in a violent confrontation against the anthracite, or hard coal mining companies in the 19th century. They were located in a section of the anthracite coal fields dubbed the Coal Region.
"The Mollys" were found in the counties of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Schuylkill, and Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.
The organization formed in 1843 in Ireland and continued its activity in America. This Irish coal mining heritage attributed to their wave of violence, and continued well over ten years in the late 19th century in the United States. Although a legitimate self-help organization for Irish immigrants existed in the form of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Molly Maguires existed as a secret organization behind this front. Both groups fought discrimination against Irish and Catholics. In the case of the Mollies, the fight took the form of violence and destruction, mimicking the attacks against English landlords in Ireland. The group's name came from a widow named Molly Maguire, who had led anti-landlord agitators in the 1840s. She may, however, only be a legendary figure.
They were forced to disband in 1877 after being in existence for about thirty years because, in an effort commissioned by Reading Railroad president Franklin B. Gowen (who was also at the time the most influential mine owner in the area), Pinkerton National Detective Agency agents infiltrated the organization and informed on the activities of the members.
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[edit] James McParlan
One agent, James McParlan, using the alias of James McKenna, became a trusted member of the organization. On 10 February 1875, Captain R.J. Linden, a fellow Pinkerton operative with McParlan, captured Thomas Munley at his home in Gilberton. Charles McAllister was apprehended at the same time. McAllister demanded a separate trial and George Kaercher, Esq., the District Attorney, elected to try Munley first.
McParlan voluntarily testified in the case, and his evidence helped to send ten men to the gallows, although historians have widely found his testimony to be false.
[edit] Franklin B. Gowen
District Attorney for Schuylkill County
The wonderful address of Mr. Gowen, and those of General Charles Albright, Hon. F.W. Hughes, and Guy E. Farquhar, Esq., added just the argument which the jury required to find a just verdict of "guilty of murder in the first degree."
In November McAllister was convicted. Munley was hanged in the Pottsville jail August 16, 1876 and McAllister was hanged later.
About twenty members of the group were hanged after being convicted of complicity in the murders of about twenty-four mine managers.
From 1865 to 1875, post-war recession combined with a crime wave in the Coal Region to create a decade marred by murder, assault and arson.
Four members of the Molly Maguires, Alexander Campbell, John "Yellow Jack" Donohue, Michael Doyle and Edward Kelly, were hanged on June 21, 1871 at a Carbon County, Pennsylvania prison in Mauch Chunk (renamed Jim Thorpe in 1953), for the murder of mine bosses John P. Jones and Morgan Powell, following a trial that was later described by Carbon County judge, John P. Lavelle, as follows:
The Molly Maguire trials were a surrender of state sovereignty. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested the alleged defenders, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows.
[edit] The Movie
A movie based on these events called The Molly Maguires, starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris, was released in 1970; its "Molly Maguires" main title theme was composed by Henry Mancini. The movie was filmed in Eckley, Pennsylvania in 1968; which was so unchanged from its 1870s appearance that the only major alteration needed for filming was to remove television antennas and install cable TV. This in fact resulted in the town's being saved from demolition, and it was afterward turned into a mining museum under the control of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Eckley's self-imposed nickname is "the ugliest town in America." Portions of the film were also shot in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
The Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear is partly based on the Molly Maguires.
Irish folk band The Dubliners refer to the Molly Maguires in one of their songs, "Molly Maguires". The Irish folk music/ska band Molly from Sweden was originally called "Molly Maguire".
[edit] External links
- Brief history of the Molly Maguires
- Molly Maguire information
- Coal mining, mine fires and the Molly Maguires
- History and Ritual of Irish Fraternal Organizations: Ancient Order of Hibernians, Molly Maguires, Orangemen, and Royal Black Knights of the Camp of Israel
- Eckley Miners' Village
- Website with detailed information on Eckley Miners' Village
- Ohio State University historical article on the Pinkerton infiltration
- Historical notes in the Great American History Fact-Finder, College division, Houghton-Mifflin
- Mollies and Black Diamonds
- Trial in Pottsville
- The movie
- Source: Allan Pinkerton, The Molly Maguires and the Detectives (1877)—American Social History Project.
- The "Eerie Handprint" of Molly Maguire Alexander Campbell in the Old Jim Thorpe Jail proclaiming eternal innocense The handprint never goes away, June 21,1877
[edit] Further Reading
- Broehl Jr., Wayne G. (1964). The Molly Mcguires. Harvard University Press. ISBN.
Category:Carbon County, Pennsylvania Category:Films about coal mining Category:History of Pennsylvania Category:Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania Category:Secret societies
