By Anne Flaherty
In late January 2025, a reader posed the following questions to me. I’m posting them here with my answers for those interested in exploring this complex and controversial history.
Did so-called “Mollies” ever refer to themselves by that name, or was “Molly Maguire,” in the U.S., always just a construct of the Hibernians’ enemies?
The AOH defendants never referred to themselves as “Mollies.” The term was extremely pejorative; for my taste, it had the power of the n-word. John Kehoe himself said in a newspaper interview while awaiting his execution: “I’ve never had justice. The newspapers and the people are down on me, because they say I’m a Molly; and to say that in Schuylkill County of a man is about as good as signing his death warrant.”
The term also had legs. My grandmother (Kehoe’s granddaughter) talked of her childhood in Girardville and of people on the street telling their children of her, “There goes a dirty Molly.” By contrast, when my mother attended grammar school in Mount Carmel in the late 1930s (or early 1940s), one of the nuns who taught her believed Kehoe to be a true Christian martyr. So in the coal region in the decades after the hangings, the label skewed all ways.
Chapter three of the Kehoe book, “The Copperheads and the Hibernians,” describes the use of the term as early as 1857. It was used then to denigrate Irish Catholic political operatives (see The Passion of John Kehoe and the Myth of the “Molly Maguires,” 47-49). It was also for decades a catch-all phrase in the press for alleged Irish criminality, especially in terms of labor.
Is it correct to say that although the Hibernians as an organization [The Ancient Order of Hibernians, or AOH] opposed violent strategies, nonetheless some men who were Hibernians networked among themselves unofficially under the umbrella of local Hibernian societies to take vengeance on disliked mine bosses?
This is a complicated question. What took place in Pennsylvania’s coal region was a criminal conspiracy: Either you believe that AOH men in the coalfields colluded to commit acts of vengeance against mine bosses, or you believe that the Pinkertons, in collusion with the railroad and coal men, orchestrated numerous murders to give the coal men their “Molly Maguire” caseload.
My years of research showed me that a number of the Irish Catholic AOH men charged as “Mollies” were not miners at all. A number had achieved elective office as high constables, tax assessors, tax collectors, and township supervisors. At least five had achieved election as township school directors, and at least four as union officers for the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (the regional mineworkers’ union). When I discovered these facts, I dropped the theory that these were oppressed mineworkers seeking retribution any way they could find it. I moved on to the theory that the Pinkertons had orchestrated a criminal conspiracy enacted on the ground by their undercover operative James McParlan, who joined the AOH to infiltrate its coal region lodges to secure lists of AOH members.
To a newspaper reporter, Kehoe said of McParlan: “it served his purpose to let murder go on, so that he could more readily arouse the prejudices of the community and thus break up the organization by hanging a lot of innocent men. I could fill your paper five times over telling of the actual participation of this man in the crimes for which he now condemns others.”
I believe that two corrupt AOH members—Daniel Kelly and James Kerrigan—absolutely colluded with the Pinkertons: Kerrigan in the commission of the murder of police officer Frank Yost (and possibly others) and as a prosecution witness; and Kelly as the murderer of Alexander Rea and, like Kerrigan, as a prosecution witness offering perjured testimony to help condemn many AOH men to death. From the remaining evidence, for what it’s worth, both Kelly and Kerrigan were alcoholics. As was the case with a number of prosecution witnesses, both Kelly and Kerrigan escaped prosecution entirely. A number of reputable AOH men also became prosecution witnesses, offering perjured testimony against their fellows to save their own lives.
I believe that one additional corrupt AOH member—Patrick Butler—colluded with the Pinkertons in the commission of violence during the Long Strike (see Passion, 106).
So I believe that AOH men who did participate in violence did so not under the umbrella of AOH lodges, but in collusion with the Pinkertons. McParlan’s membership in the AOH lodge at Shenandoah complicates this fact. But McParlan was, first, last, and always, a Pinkerton. It’s also impossible to know at what point Kehoe tumbled to the fact that McParlan was working undercover.
Bottom line: At least five of the AOH men charged as “Mollies” had been elected as township school directors. At least two of these had achieved that office while continuing to work as miners. Men who have achieved this level of elective office have absolutely no motive to conspire to commit random and seemingly senseless murders. To do so would have been certain suicide to their ascendant social, political, and religious aims.
Allan Pinkerton’s motives were pecuniary. In May 1873, he faced bankruptcy. He advised his superintendent in New York: “It looks as if I were going to go down, with money enough due me, to pay all my debts, and a great deal more, yet still I am unable to raise scarcely enough to buy a dinner.” Two days later, he advised the same superintendent to send someone to railroad president Franklin Gowen, chief prosecutor of the “Molly” trials, to “suggest some things to Mr. Gowan [sic] about one thing and another which would be possible, and I have no doubt he will give us work.” Pinkerton’s acquisition of the “Molly Maguire” caseload saved his company from financial ruin.
James McParlan’s motives were also pecuniary. Sometime after the “Molly” caseload concluded, McParlan involved himself in nefarious ongoings in Parsons, Kansas. In the early 1900s, when McParlan [then “McParland”] prosecuted his caseload against the Western Federation of Miners, the citizens of Parsons drafted a resolution. It said in part: “That we warn the courts and law officers of Idaho to be watchful of every move by James McParland, as we unhesitatingly declare that where there is a money consideration he will do anything no matter how low or evil, to accomplish his purpose. . . . there is not to-day, in the United States outside prison walls, a more conscienceless and desperate criminal than McParland.”
By my count from Pinkerton reports, Allan Pinkerton had more than twenty operatives stationed in the Pennsylvania coalfields for his “Molly Maguire” operation. Most were identified only by their initials. Any number of these men could have colluded with McParlan in the commission of coalfield murders.
As to the possible ethnic dimensions of the conflict of the Pinkertons vs. the Hibernians, see Passion, 348 [McParlan as “McFarlan”].
For my discussion of the Pinkertons and commercial terrorism, see Passion, 98, 106, 109-10, 124-25, 155, 366-68, 409, 446-48.
How well informed was Kehoe about violent acts of which he may have disapproved? In other words, did he keep silent about what he knew as a matter of principle?
Another complicated question. Kehoe was a law-and-order man: He was elected twice as high constable of Girardville, and was actually in office when he was arrested. Kehoe’s father Joseph served as constable of Mahanoy City (as well as township supervisor there), so respect for law enforcement ran in the family.
Kehoe also had political aspirations: In 1872, he was a Democratic hopeful for state assembly.
I believe that Kehoe knew that the Pinkertons had infiltrated his community. He told a reporter in 1877: “Before McParlan came they [the Pinkertons] tried to make the detectives keep taverns among us. But they couldn’t find out anything because there was nothing to find out. And then they sent McParlan, who was an Irishman and perhaps a Catholic, and they instructed him to join the society and encourage and commit crime, and when he should get enough into the snare he was to begin hanging them on his own evidence and that of others whom he threatened to hang, and who, to save their necks, would lie on their fellows.”
From my long reading of the evidence, if feels to me as if Kehoe left his political aspirations behind to try and protect his community, and possibly his own family, in the most effective way he could: i.e., as high constable of his community. He knew the threat the Pinkertons posed both to Irish Catholic politicians and to union men.
As high constable of Girardville, Kehoe arrested Frank Wenrich, the Mahanoy City butcher and militia man responsible for the vigilante deaths in 1875 of two of Kehoe’s in-laws at Wiggan’s Patch. That same year, Kehoe arrested a suspect in the killing of Squire Thomas Gwyther at Girardville. A Pottsville paper said of Kehoe’s actions after Gwyther’s murder: “While on the way to the justice’s office, the constable [Kehoe] and his prisoner were surrounded by an excited crowd, who brandished revolvers and knives, and threatened to take the latter’s life. Another tragedy was only prevented by the coolness and courage of the officer of the law.”
Given his actions as a law officer, let alone as an AOH officer, it’s hard to imagine Kehoe keeping silent over acts of violence. On the other hand, Kehoe knew that given the influence of the Coal and Iron police and the Pinkertons, “law and order” simply did not exist in Schuylkill County at that time. Kehoe called his own capital trial “Jug handled Justice”; i.e. “Justice” that flowed from one side only: that of the prosecution.
How much authority could Kehoe exercise over men who might choose to commit acts despite his disapproval?
A number of Kehoe’s actions, including his actions as high constable, showed his advocacy of non-violence. Regarding Patrick Butler noted above, who claimed that both Patrick himself and his brother John had helped sabotage the railroad tracks in Schuylkill County during the Long Strike, McParlan stated in an operative report: “Kehoe had informed them [the Butler brothers] at the [AOH] convention, that if they committed any more such depredations they would be expelled for life from the organization.”
A second McParlan report from 1875 described an AOH assembly that took place prior to the order’s St. Patrick’s Day parade at Mahanoy City: “County Delegate Kehoe made a speech and said that the parade was looked upon by the Citizens of Mahanoy, as a foreboding of bloodshed, and murder, and that he (Kehoe) wanted to inform them (the MM’s) that if any of them got drunk, or misbehaved, he (Kehoe) would strip them of their regalia, that he wanted to show to the Clergy and the public, that although they bore a bad name, they were by no means deserving of it.” Newspapers later described Kehoe’s marchers as “strikingly dignified and manly.”
In October 1875, Thomas Foster of the Shenandoah Herald called for lynchings after a number of coal region murders that Foster ascribed to the so-called “Molly Maguires,” with the implication that AOH men were involved in the murders. Kehoe wrote to Foster: “The articles which have appeared on this matter have done an incalculable amount of harm, and, as a friend to law and order, I would advise their cessation.” Kehoe described the AOH to Foster as “a chartered organization, recognized by the commonwealth, and composed of men who are law-abiding and seek the elevation of their members. . . . nothing can be more unjust than to charge the order with any acts of lawlessness.”
That same fall, Kehoe said of a Girardville resident whom he suspected of agitating for vigilantism: “it would be more charitable for him or any other correspondent to encourage brotherly love instead of sowing seeds of antagonism which sooner or later may lead to bloodshed.”
So Kehoe maintained authority both as high constable (in his own words, “as a friend to law and order”) and as AOH county delegate (again, in his words, “a chartered organization, recognized by the commonwealth, and composed of men who are law-abiding and seek the elevation of their members”). Given the chaos in the region at the time, his was a promethean task. Apart from the description of Kehoe’s AOH marchers as “strikingly dignified and manly,” I can only speculate as to how far his authority extended to AOH members under his influence.
Added to the above, Pennsylvania’s AOH charter itself, revised in 1871, was based on language both poetic and profound (“Love guides the whole design”). In August 1876 a city newspaper, in the heat of the “Molly” trials, hinted that AOH men under indictment for murder had actually drafted that charter’s language. Kehoe was the primary AOH leader under indictment at that time (Patrick Hester and Thomas Fisher had not yet been arrested). So Kehoe’s involvement in the revised AOH charter from 1871 also remains a question.
Added to that, we have Kehoe’s own words, from a private letter, regarding his capital case: “I would sooner die than swear a wilful [sic] lie on my fellow man.” Kehoe’s faith as a Roman Catholic, as well as that of his AOH colleagues, should always be taken into consideration.
How direct a role did Kehoe play in the Long Strike?
Again, a difficult question. I’ve wondered if certain AOH officers along with Kehoe—Alexander Campbell, James Carroll, Thomas Fisher, Patrick Hester, Michael Lawler, Hugh McGehan, Cornelius McHugh—advocated through AOH lodges in favor of the Long Strike. I make this observation based on evidence I found in trial testimony and newspaper accounts.
The bottom line is that Franklin Gowen helped hang five of the Irishmen mentioned above. I believe that the charges against them were fiction, and that their hangings were judicial murder. (For the Pinkertons’ drafting of fictional trial testimony in other labor cases, see Passion, 353-356, 385-389). The AOH men, having exhausted their legislative challenges against Gowen’s Coal Combination in 1871 and 1875 (see Passion, 95-97, 101, 412), may well have believed that the Long Strike was their last best chance of challenging Gowen’s monopoly control of the coalfields.
Given the gaps that I found while researching, I came to assume that references to AOH defendants and organized labor were eliminated from research collections. The most dramatic evidence of sabotage to archived collections that I found came from the Shenandoah Herald in 1871, from the time when at least two alleged “Mollies,” Michael Lawler and Cornelius McHugh, were involved in WBA Grand Council proceedings at Mauch Chunk. Before the newspaper was microfilmed, it was heavily stained with what appeared to be ink poured over its pages. This staining went on for a number of weeks. A legend attached to the stained newsprint read “Stained Pages | Mutilated Pages” (see Passion, 438).
The involvement of Kehoe and his AOH codefendants in the Long Strike remains an open question.
How much education did Kehoe have, and where did he get it?
Another mystery. We know from a letter written by Kehoe in early spring 1878 to his friend, Quaker attorney Ramsay Potts, that Kehoe could read and write. Kehoe’s letter, though it contains some profound expressions, also contains a number of misspellings and grammatical errors.
Letters written by Kehoe to area newspapers in 1875 were more polished (see Passion, chapter nine, “Mary Ann”). Local editors may have helped him, or AOH colleagues may have assisted him (again, five were school directors).
Were any Protestant vigilantes punished for crimes against Irish miners and their families?
You’ll forgive me if I tell you that I read that question aloud to my sister Kathy, and we both laughed. As high constable of Girardville, Kehoe arrested Frank Wenrich, partly responsible for the deaths at Wiggan’s Patch of Kehoe’s young pregnant sister-in-law and Kehoe’s nineteen-year-old brother-in-law, and directly responsible for the savage beating of Kehoe’s mother-in-law (see Passion, chapter two, “Wiggan’s Patch”). Wenrich was subsequently brought before the court of Cyrus Pershing, the corrupt political operative brought into Schuylkill County by Gowen to serve as president judge. Pershing’s court dropped the charges against Wenrich. Pershing’s court later sentenced Kehoe to death, along with eight other alleged “Mollies.”
No other charges were ever brought against the men who committed the murderous actions at Wiggan’s Patch. Seven months after the attack, shortly after James Kerrigan gave the prosecution testimony that opened the doors to the hangings of numerous alleged “Mollies,” the Silliman Guards, the militia of which Frank Wenrich was a lieutenant and whose members likely committed the atrocities at Wiggan’s Patch, joined in a day of “enjoyment and feasting” at a picnic held in Schuylkill County (see Passion, 153).
As with the lynchings in the South, sadism was a large component of the “Molly Maguire” proceedings in Pennsylvania during the 1870s.
In one presentation I’ve given, I noted that the most effective way for individuals to escape prosecution in Schuylkill County at that time was to have killed someone, to have admitted to the killing, and to have served subsequently as a prosecution witness, giving perjured testimony against AOH men charged as “Mollies.” That scenario included William Canvin and Patrick Ferry, the two primary prosecution witnesses used against Kehoe in his capital trial (see Passion, 237-241).
Hoping this helps clarify some of these complicated issues.
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