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ALLAN PINKERTON’S
DETECTIVE STORIES.
VOL. VI.
THE
MOLLY MAGUIRES
AND
THE DETECTIVES.
[Illustration: “_The trial at Mauch Chunk was attended by all the
celebrities of the Carbon County bar._”]
[Illustration: “_A consultation was held, in my private parlor, over the
business offices of the Agency, No. 45 South Third Street._”]
THE
MOLLY MAGUIRES
AND
THE DETECTIVES.
BY
ALLAN PINKERTON,
AUTHOR OF
“THE EXPRESSMAN AND THE DETECTIVE,” “THE MODEL TOWN
AND THE DETECTIVES,” “THE SPIRITUALISTS AND
THE DETECTIVES,” ETC., ETC.
NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
_G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers._
LONDON: S. LOW & CO. PHILADELPHIA: H. W. KELLEY.
CHICAGO: T. A. LANTRY & CO. BOSTON: D. O’LOUGHLIN.
MDCCCLXXX.
[_SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION._]
COPYRIGHTED 1877.
BY ALLAN PINKERTON.
_All rights reserved._
TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
PRINTERS,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
An Extraordinary Proposition 13
CHAPTER II.
The Man for the Work 22
CHAPTER III.
The Detective seeks the Haunts of the Mollies 27
CHAPTER IV.
Stirring up a Wasp’s Nest 36
CHAPTER V.
Cold Comfort in the Mountains 49
CHAPTER VI.
Pottsville and the Sheridan House 59
CHAPTER VII.
Bloody Record of the Mollie Maguires 66
CHAPTER VIII.
The Detective Sings, Fights, and Dances Himself into 73
Popularity
CHAPTER IX.
Dormer under Investigation 82
CHAPTER X.
Father Bridgeman gives Jack Kehoe a Blast 92
CHAPTER XI.
A Kilkenny Affair at Tamaqua 105
CHAPTER XII.
McKenna meets a Morning Adventure 113
CHAPTER XIII.
Muff Lawler at Home 124
CHAPTER XIV.
The Detective achieves a Victory 134
CHAPTER XV.
More Work of the Mollies 145
CHAPTER XVI.
A Rough Journey and a Thrilling Adventure 156
CHAPTER XVII.
A Peculiar Wedding Ceremony 168
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Row, a Removal, and a Raffle 179
CHAPTER XIX.
Snared by Kate—Honored by “Mollie.” 194
CHAPTER XX.
A Fright, a Fight, and a Funeral 207
CHAPTER XXI.
Contest with a Constable 221
CHAPTER XXII.
Horrors upon Horrors 231
CHAPTER XXIII.
Good Old Micky Cuff 239
CHAPTER XXIV.
Hostilities continued 251
CHAPTER XXV.
Plot to destroy the Catawissa Bridges 262
CHAPTER XXVI.
A Calamity Averted 271
CHAPTER XXVII.
New Forces in the Field 280
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Detective in Sore Tribulation 293
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Inquisition of Ten 303
CHAPTER XXX.
Another Victim of the Mollies 316
CHAPTER XXXI.
Holding the Breaker 327
CHAPTER XXXII.
Linden forms an Acquaintance 337
CHAPTER XXXIII.
President Gowen and the Legislative Commission 346
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Murder of B. F. Yost 356
CHAPTER XXXV.
McKenna takes up the Trail at Tamaqua 367
CHAPTER XXXVI.
In the Murderer’s Nest 377
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Kerrigan’s Sister-in-law 391
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Slowly gaining Ground 401
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Bloody Saturday 411
CHAPTER XL.
More Bosses Doomed 423
CHAPTER XLI.
Murder of Sanger and Uren 433
CHAPTER XLII.
Arrest of Assassins 441
CHAPTER XLIII.
Violence for Violence 451
CHAPTER XLIV.
Trials and Confessions 462
CHAPTER XLV.
Suspicion Aroused 471
CHAPTER XLVI.
McAndrew saves a Life 486
CHAPTER XLVII.
The Last of McKenna 497
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A Noble Effort 508
CHAPTER XLIX.
Closing the Record 542
PREFACE.
The governing idea in the mind of the author, while preparing this
volume for the press, has been to give details connected with the MOLLIE
MAGUIRES, and follow strictly the truth concerning the adventures of the
detectives during three years passed in their midst. He is aware that,
in many places, the relation reads much like fiction, and that it will
be accepted as romance by very many who are totally unacquainted with
the country and the people attempted to be described. It has been the
constant endeavor to adhere closely to facts, and if the incidents are,
in a great degree, novel and absorbing, it is due to these facts, and
they were worked out, through arduous labors, in sleepless nights and
undivided attention to the ends to be gained.
The coal regions of Pennsylvania are inhabited by a mixture of races,
the ingredients perhaps more widely differing, in character and origin,
than those of any other portion of the globe. Living within a stone’s
throw of each other will be found the German, Swede, Norwegian, Pole,
Irish, Scotch, English, Bohemian, and Russian. And in moving across the
country, from one colliery to another, representatives of nearly all of
these widely separated nations may be encountered, with here and there
an American and Pennsylvania German. All endeavor to express themselves
in Anglo-Saxon, but their foreign idioms and native eccentricities will,
spite of themselves, occasionally crop out. Hence the life of a person,
who is sensitively alive to diversified phases of human nature and
having a keen sense of the humorous, in the mining districts, cannot
well be devoid of enjoyment. Some extraordinary habits and peculiarities
are found in the coal fields not discovered elsewhere.
To the boundless extent and value of the coal fields, as a portion of
the economy of the whole country, full reference has been made in this
volume.
The only difficulty of importance experienced by the writer of the work
has been to condense within the compass of these pages the very extended
and almost overwhelming mass of matter placed before him—all of which,
he doubts not, would, if given, prove of general interest—and to
exercise due discretion in the rejection of portions not deemed
absolutely necessary to be incorporated.
It has been the constant intent to produce a fair picture of the MOLLIE
MAGUIRE in his native or adopted home, with only such delineations of
the scenery and surroundings as the course of the narrative may seem
naturally to bring in. These, it is to be hoped, will be found apt and
in accordance with nature.
For the sanguinary character of many of the chapters and accompanying
illustrations no excuse is needed. It is the work of the MOLLIE
MAGUIRES, and not of the author or designer. Where scenes of general
interest are depicted the assistance of the photographer and his camera
has been liberally invoked. In the letter-press the relater has merely
traced the journeyings of the detectives with a faithful pen, and sought
to reproduce their words, acts, and results achieved, as well as the
language of the persons, criminals or citizens, with whom they have come
in contact. All of the characters lived, or once have lived, in the
anthracite coal regions. If fault there may be in their description, it
will be found in lack of color, as the brush has not, in any case, been
dipped in too florid hues.
With the ends accomplished in this three years’ warfare with the MOLLIE
MAGUIRES, the public is already well instructed, the great newspapers of
the country having vied with each other in friendly rivalry to first
give the results.
The author has reason to be proud of the work done. The modes in which
the labors were performed, and the routes taken by himself and others to
gain desirable points have found record for the first time, in the
following pages. No attempt has ever before been made to give them. No
task of the kind could succeed without the private papers and documents
on file in my Agency, to which, of course, no person, excepting myself,
would be permitted to have access.
With the purely legal and court portions of the murder cases, the
arguments of the distinguished counsel for both sides, and the
testimony, simply as testimony, I have dealt very sparingly. The
masterly effort of F. B. Gowen, Esq., I have printed almost entire. It
is so to the point, so truthful, and such a vivid and telling exposition
of the theory of the Commonwealth, that any attempt in the way of
curtailment would be damaging. Without the speech I should consider my
book incomplete.
The talent of the entire State of Pennsylvania was hunted over to find
attorneys capable of freeing the unfortunate men brought to trial in
Schuylkill, Columbia, and Carbon counties. But the law was against them.
The defendants had incurred the penalty, by committal of crimes, and
justice has been at least partly vindicated.
ALLAN PINKERTON.
CHICAGO, ILL., _June, 1877_.
THE MOLLIE MAGUIRES
AND THE
DETECTIVES.
CHAPTER I.
AN EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSITION.
Early in the month of October, 1873, I was in Philadelphia, and one day
received a note from Mr. F. B. Gowen, President of the Philadelphia and
Reading Railway Company and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron
Company, saying that he desired to see me at his place of business. I
immediately responded to the invitation, accompanied by Superintendent
Franklin, and met the gentleman in his private apartment, in the
Company’s elegant building on Fourth Street.
“I have sent for you, Mr. Pinkerton,” said the President of the two
great Pennsylvania corporations, after we had exchanged greetings, “upon
business of importance.”
I made known my willingness to hear what it was.
“The coal regions are infested by a most desperate class of men, banded
together for the worst purposes—called, by some, the Buckshots, by
others the Mollie Maguires—and they are making sad havoc with the
country. It is a secret organization, has its meetings in hidden and
out-of the-way places, and its members, I have been convinced ever since
my residence in Pottsville and my connection with the criminal courts as
District Attorney in the county of Schuylkill, are guilty of a majority
of all the murders and other deeds of outrage which, for many years,
have been committed in the neighborhood. I wish you to investigate this
mysterious order, find out its interior workings, expose its evil
transactions, and see if the just laws of the State cannot again be made
effective in bringing criminals to justice. At present, whenever an
assassination is consummated, and, as a consequence, a trial is
instituted, a convenient _alibi_ steps forward and secures for the
prisoner his freedom. Municipal laws are thus incapable of execution;
sheriffs of counties are powerless, and the usual run of detectives are
of as little value as the open, uniformed police of the different
cities. All of these have been tested, and all have failed. Now, if you
cannot disperse the murderous crew, or give us grounds upon which to
base prosecutions, then I shall believe that it never will be effected.”
I considered the proposition for a moment, turning over in my mind the
magnitude of the labor to be performed.
“Let me think of it a little,” I answered; “and, in the meantime, tell
me more about the Mollie Maguires.”
“As far as we can learn, the society is of foreign birth, a noxious weed
which has been transplanted from its native soil—that of Ireland—to the
United States, some time within the last twenty years. It lived and
prospered in the old country considerably earlier. Its supporters there
were known as Ribbonmen, the White Boys, and sometimes as Mollie
Maguires, but their modes of procedure were the same as now pursued in
the coal regions. Men were then, as they are at this time,
killed—sometimes in broad daylight, sometimes at night, and invariably
by strangers—persons at least unknown to chance spectators, or to the
parties violently put out of the way. Suspected individuals would be
apprehended, but in the end nobody could be found able to identify the
criminals. It was only after a protracted struggle in Ireland that the
proper evidence could be elicited to convict the tools doing the bloody
behests of the society. I suppose it will not be easy to do this in
Pennsylvania. The same minds, the same combinations, are to be
encountered here. The Mollies rule our people with a rod of iron. They
do this and make no sign. The voice of the fraternity is unheard, but
the work is performed. Even the political sentiments of the commonwealth
are moulded by them, and in their particular field they elect or defeat
whomsoever they may please. They control, in a measure, the finances of
the State. Their chiefs direct affairs this way, and that way, without
hinderance. Men without an iota of moral principle, they dictate the
principles of otherwise honorable parties. In its ultimate results this
complexion of affairs in Pennsylvania touches, to a considerable degree,
the interests of the citizens of the whole country. Wherever anthracite
is employed is also felt the vise-like grip of this midnight,
dark-lantern, murderous-minded fraternity. Wherever in the United States
iron is wrought, from Maine to Georgia, from ocean to ocean—wherever
hard coal is used for fuel, there the Mollie Maguire leaves his slimy
trail and wields with deadly effect his two powerful levers:
secrecy—combination. Men having their capital locked up in the coal-beds
are as obedient puppets in his hands. They have for some time felt that
they were fast losing sway over that which by right should be their own
to command. They think, with some show of reason, their money would have
profited them as much had it been thrown to the fishes in the sea, or
devoted to the devouring flames. Others, wishing to engage in mining
operations, and who are possessed of the capital and experience
necessary, are driven away. They cannot intrust their hard-earned
property to a venture which will be at the beck and call of a fierce and
sanguinary rabble and its heedless and reckless directors. They wisely
turn aside and seek other and less hazardous uses for their talents and
their means. The entire population of this State feel the shock, and it
is in due season communicated to the most distant parts in which
anthracite is used and ores reduced or smelted.”
I had heard of many assassinations by these Mollie Maguires, and also
about those performed by the Ku-Klux and similar political combinations
in the Southern States. It had always seemed to me that it was a sacred
duty which Pennsylvania owed to herself, to her own citizens, and to the
country at large, to clear her garments of the taint resting upon them
and bring to punishment the persons who, for so many years, habitually
outraged decency, spilt human blood without stint, and converted the
richest section of one of the most wealthy and refined of all the
sisterhood of States into a very golgotha—a locality from which
law-abiding men and women might soon be forced to flee, as from the
threatened cities of the plain, or from a spot stricken with plague and
pestilence.
“I will enter upon the business, but it will require time, sharp work,
and plenty of both!”
“Yes! We duly appreciate this,” responded Mr. Gowen. “What we want, and
everybody wants, is to get within this apparently impenetrable ring;
turn to the light the hidden side of this dark and cruel body, to probe
to its core this festering sore upon the body politic, which is rapidly
gnawing into the vitals and sapping the life of the community. Crime
must be punishable in the mountains of Pennsylvania, as it is in the
agricultural counties, and in all well-regulated countries. We want to
work our mines in peace, to run our passenger and freight trains without
fear of the sudden loss of life and property through the malicious acts
of the Mollie Maguires; we want people to sleep unthreatened,
unmolested, in their beds, undisturbed by horrid dreams of midnight
prowlers and cowardly assassins; we want the laboring-men, of whatever
creeds or nationalities, protected in their right to work to secure
sustenance for their wives and little ones, unawed by outside
influences. We want the miner to go forth cheerfully to the slope, or
the shaft, for labor in the breast or in the gangway, wherever it may
seem to him for the best, void of the fear in his heart when he parts
from his wife at the cottage-gate in the morning, that it may be their
last farewell on earth, and by evening his bullet-riddled corpse may be
taken back to his home the only evidence that he has encountered the
murderer—the agent of those who would compel him to refuse all
employment unless the regulations of the order were complied with. The
State cannot attain these things; she has repeatedly tried, and tried in
vain. You can do it. I have seen you tested on other occasions and in
other matters, and know your ability to conduct the business; we are
willing to supply everything within our power to make your task a
success.”
“I believe that it can be accomplished, but I am also aware that it is a
stupendous undertaking. I accept the responsibility, however, with its
accompanying consequences, which I perceive will prove no small burden
to bear. I also see that I shall encounter no little difficulty in
detailing from the many able and trustworthy men in my force one
perfectly qualified for this very unusual charge. And an error in the
outset would bring irreparable disaster before the end could be reached.
It is no ordinary man that I need in this matter. He must be an
Irishman, and a Catholic, as only this class of persons can find
admission to the Mollie Maguires. My detective should become, to all
intents and purposes, one of the order, and continue so while he remains
in the case before us. He should be hardy, tough, and capable of
laboring, in season and out of season, to accomplish, unknown to those
about him, a single absorbing object. In the meanwhile, I shall have to
exact from you a pledge that, whoever I may dispatch upon this errand,
he shall not, through you, become known to any person as a detective.
This is highly necessary to be strictly attended to. If possible, you
should shut your eyes to the fact that I have an employé of my Agency
working in the mining country. If you can do so consistently, it might
as well be given out to everybody interested that the idea of
investigating the Mollies through the means of detectives, if ever
thought of, has been abandoned as a hopeless job, and that the present
status of affairs in the mines is totally incapable of being changed.
Take the further precaution that my name, and those of my
superintendents and employés, do not appear upon any of your books. Keep
my reports in your own custody, away from all prying eyes. I would also
ask, if my agents are engaged for one week, for one month, or for years,
that these requests still be complied with; and further, whatever may be
the result of the examination, no person in my employ—unless the
circumstances are greatly changed and I demand it—shall ever be required
to appear and give testimony upon the witness stand.”
“To all of this I give willing consent. I see how necessary it is. As I
said before, we will do anything in our power, and within the bounds of
reason, to aid you and protect your detectives.”
I then agreed that the operation should begin as soon as I might make
the proper arrangements, and, after some further conversation,
principally upon the purely financial portion of the engagement, took my
leave.
Immediately after leaving Mr. Gowen’s office I telegraphed for Mr.
Bangs, General Superintendent. He arrived from New York early the
ensuing day, and a consultation was held in my private parlor, over the
business offices of the Agency, at No. 45 South Third Street, Mr. Bangs,
Mr. Franklin and myself forming the parties to the council. The details
of the case were discussed at length and a general plan of operations
decided upon, after which I started for my return trip westward.
It was the ending of a delightfully cool and pleasant Indian summer day,
and as I was being rapidly whirled through the most beautiful portion of
New Jersey, my face toward the open window, inhaling the invigorating
atmosphere, and enjoying a view of the fast-fading, swift-passing
panorama of plain and valley, village and stream, I continually dwelt
upon the service in which I had recently enlisted. Forgetting the
sunset, the agreeable evening, and every immediate surrounding, my mind
was absorbed in contemplating the subject then nearest my heart.
Mentally I brought in review the different devoted attachés of the
Agency, who, through nativity and early training, were eligible to the
place to be filled. All were trustworthy, as far as that went; all were
courageous, faithful and efficient in positions and under circumstances
ordinarily calling for the exercise of these qualities. But the man now
wanted was to meet peculiar dangers. He must be perfectly qualified in
every respect, or he would not do. It was no discredit to my corps of
detectives, that I quickly dismissed many of them as inadequate for the
duty. It was not their fault. Had I one man who would go against his
life-long habits, early impressions, education, and his inherited as
well as acquired prejudices? Was there one who held sufficiently broad
and deeply-grounded notions of the real duty of a true Irishman to his
country and his fellow-countrymen to intrust with this great mission? I
believed that I had, but which one was it in the number thus, in my
mind, competing for the honor? He must be able to distinguish the real
from the ideal moral obligation, and pierce the vail separating a
supposed from an actual state of affairs. He must have the gift of
seeing that the misguided people of the mining districts who had joined
this order were unquestionably working evil, and only evil, to Ireland,
Irishmen, and the church, in lieu of doing their native land and their
kindred at home and in America a service.
While Bishop Wood, of Philadelphia, had early placed his seal of
condemnation upon the Mollie Maguires in the coal regions, and the
clergy had followed, almost to a man, in bringing the individual members
of the clan before them and their congregations, and heaped dread
maledictions upon their heads, calling the persons by name in public,
and even cut them from the church until such time as they should
renounce their membership, still I knew many good Catholics, and honest
men at heart, were remaining in the organization, and that, in some more
peaceable sections of the State, the priesthood, if not tacitly
countenancing the society said little against it. To their credit be it
stated, however, they were unanimous in their abhorrence of the violent
acts of the Mollie Maguires in Schuylkill, Carbon, Columbia, and Luzerne
counties. I had to find a man who, once inside this, as I supposed,
oath-bound brotherhood, would yet remain true to me; who could make
almost a new man of himself, take his life in his hands, and enter upon
a work which was apparently against those bound to him by close ties of
nationality, if not of blood and kindred; and for months, perhaps for
years, place himself in antagonism with and rebellion against the
dictates of his church—the church which from his earliest breath he had
been taught to revere. He would perforce obtain a reputation for evil
conduct, from which it was doubtful that he could ever entirely
extricate himself. Would the common run of men think such a position at
all tenable? Would they consent to ostensibly degrade themselves that
others might be saved? My man must become, really and truly, a Mollie of
the hardest character, attend their meetings, and possibly be charged
with direct participation in certain of their crimes. He must face the
priest, and endure the bad opinion of his countrymen even until the end.
For an indefinite period he was to be as one dead and buried in the
grave—dead to his family and friends—sinking his individuality—and be
published abroad as the companion and associate of assassins, murderers,
incendiaries, thieves, and gamblers. In no other way could I hope to
secure admission to the inner circle of this labyrinth of iniquity. By
no other plan could the clan be exposed and its volume of crime clasped
forever. Another thing: The Mollie Maguires were working in opposition
to the Welsh, English, and German miners. Their hatred of the English,
especially, they had imbibed with their mothers’ milk. I was, if
possible, to destroy the Mollie Maguires. Therefore, my operatives must
be the instruments of that destruction. Then how difficult for any
Irishman to enter upon the warfare? If he had the ability to see far
enough, however, it would be understood that the leaders of the
obnoxious society were simply apostates—men disloyal to the land of
their birth—engaged in an unholy effort, and one which, successful or
not, reflected discredit upon all of their countrymen. Beholding and
understanding this, the detective would not be working merely to right
the wrongs of this man or that man, but to wipe off a dark blot which
had fallen upon the escutcheon of Ireland, and which clouded the fair
fame of every Irishman in America. Then he would meet the cry, in the
mines and elsewhere, of “persecution for opinion’s sake,” and the danger
of “a conflict between capital on the one side and labor on the other.”
Would he be shrewd enough to detect the untruthfulness of one and the
insincerity of the other? Surely here was a task for me, in the very
outset, the fellow of which I had not encountered since the war of the
rebellion.
————●————