Pinkerton’s Great Detective

by Beau Riffenburgh

  30. JM, in CAC, p. 601.

  31. The Daily Miners’ Journal, Sept. 28, 1876.

  32. JM, testimony in first trial of James Carroll et al., as reported in The Daily Miners’ Journal, May 11, 1876.

  33. BF, in CAC, pp. 679–80.

  34. Testimony in first trial of James Carroll et al., as reported in The Daily Miners’ Journal, May 11, 1876.

  35. AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, pp. 447–48.

  36. The Tamaqua Courier, Sept. 4, 1875; emphasis in original.

  37. See, for example, Daily Herald, Sept. 4, 1875; The Daily Miners’ Journal, Sept. 4, 6, 1875; The Workingman, Sept. 4, 1875.

  38. Coleman, “Gold Hunters of California”; Ethington, The Public City, chapts. 2–3.

  39. Bogardus, The Scarlet Mask; Horan, The Pinkertons, pp. 160–79.

  40. Daily Herald, Sept. 4, 1875.

  41. Morn, The Eye That Never Sleeps, p. 78; AP, letters to GHB, April 17, Nov. 1, 1874, LoC, box 47, AP letterbook 1872–75.

  42. AP, letter to GHB, Aug. 29, 1875, LoC, box 47, AP letterbook 1872–75.

  43. RJL, letter to JM, Sept. 1875; quoted in AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, p. 442.

  44. AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, pp. 443–44.

  45. Porter, The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.

  46. RJL, in CAC, p. 1316.

  47. JM, expense account, Sept. 15, 19, 1875, HML, box 1001; list of members of the AOH, HML, box 979.

  48. Handbill listing Molly Maguire crimes and residences of murderers, LoC, box 142.

  49. JM, expense account, Sept. 29, Oct. 2, 1875, HML, box 1001; AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, pp. 462.

  50. Porter, The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.

  51. BF (for JM), report to FBG, Oct. 13, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  52. BF (for RJL), reports to FBG, Sept. 3–20, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  53. RJL, expense account, Oct. 5, 6, 1875, HML, box 1001; BF (for RJL), report to FBG, Oct. 20, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  54. Daily Herald, Oct. 23, 1875.

  55. Dewees, The Molly Maguires, pp. 235–37.

  56. BF (for JM), reports to FBG, Oct. 14, 19, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  57. Miscellaneous document about Thomas Hurley and Patrick Clark, Kaercher MSS, file A42.

  58. See, for example, BF (for JM), reports to FBG, Oct. 31, Nov. 11, 15, 17, 20, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  59. Ibid., Nov. 1, 1875.

  60. JM, testimony in trial of Thomas Munley, as reported in The Daily Miners’ Journal, July 3, 1876; RCK, p. 102.

  61. BF (for JM), report to FBG, Nov. 27, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  62. The account of the Wiggans Patch murders—including the quotes—are taken from depositions given at the habeas corpus hearings for Frank Wenrich on Dec. 13, 1875, Kaercher MSS, file A31, and from numerous newspapers, including: Daily Herald, Dec. 10, 11, 1875; The Daily Miners’ Journal, Dec. 11, 1875; Evening Chronicle, Dec. 10, 11, 1875; The Evening Telegraph, Dec. 11, 1875; The New-York Times, Dec. 11, 1875; The Pottsville Standard, Dec. 11, 1875; and The Tamaqua Courier, Dec. 11, 1875.

  63. Daily Herald, Dec. 11, 1875.

  64. The Daily Miners’ Journal, Dec. 17, 1875.

  65. Daily Herald, Dec. 11, 1875.

  66. Ibid., Dec. 14, 1875.

  67. BF (for JM), report to FBG, Dec. 13, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  68. LoC, box 142, folder 4. James B. Reilly, whom McParlan mentioned, was one of several Pottsville attorneys who had agreed to represent Doyle, Kelly, and Kerrigan. He had told Jerry Kane, the Mount Laffee bodymaster (who provided Doyle and Kelly for the Jones murder) that “there was something rotten in Denmark,” meaning he suspected an informer within the Molly Maguires (Crown and Major, A Guide to the Molly Maguires, p. 147).

  69. Horan and Swiggett, The Pinkerton Story, p. 127; Horan, The Pinkertons, p. 226.

  70. For example, Broehl, The Molly Maguires, p. 265.

  71. BF, letter to AP, Dec. 11, 1875, quoted in typescript of Horan and Swiggett, The Pinkerton Story; LoC, box 21, folder 2. In The Pinkertons (p. 533), Horan stated: “I had copied this letter [from the Pinkerton’s archives] in 1949. It is now missing. Broehl also reports it missing.” Not surprisingly, more than forty years later, it is still not to be found in the Pinkerton’s files at the Library of Congress.

  72. BF (for JM), reports to FBG, Dec. 11, 14, 1875, HML, box 1001.

  73. Ibid., Dec. 15, 1875.

  74. Through the years, numerous suggestions have been made as to the identity of the murderers at Wiggans Patch. One of the first notions was that it was a “clan fight” between the O’Donnells and Irish families in Gilberton (The Daily Miners’ Journal, Dec. 11, 1875; The Evening Telegraph, Dec. 11, 1875). Just a few days previously, James O’Donnell had led a group of men to St. Nicholas, where they had badly beaten a Gilberton man named Patrick Quinn (BF [for JM], report to FBG, Dec. 8, 1875, HML, box 1001). That this led to the events at Wiggans Patch is unlikely, however, as the efficiency and numbers of the attackers appear too highly organized for a factional struggle. Moreover, such a group would have had no reason to leave behind the note about the killings of Sanger and Uren.

  Another theory was mentioned by Dewees as having come from John Slattery, a member of the Tuscarora lodge. Slattery claimed that Charles O’Donnell had become “much troubled in mind” after the murders of Sanger and Uren, and that Kehoe feared he would give away the details of the killing. On the morning before the murder, Charles Mulhearn supposedly told Slattery that a job was to be done that night at Wiggans Patch. Slattery was convinced that Mulhearn and others had carried out Kehoe’s order to eliminate O’Donnell. Given the closeness of the family (of which Kehoe was a part), the way in which Molly Maguire killings were generally carried out, and the size and actions of the group invading the O’Donnell house, this theory makes little sense (as even Dewees, no friend to Kehoe, admitted; The Molly Maguires, pp. 239–40).

  Half a century later, Coleman claimed that the Sheet-Irons (or Chain Gang) were responsible (The Molly Maguire Riots, p. 104). Yet again, the way the operation was organized does not reflect the actions usually conducted by that gang. Moreover, if there were a serious consideration that they had done it, there would have been at least some discussion about revenge among those with whom McParlan spent time in the following weeks.

  Some historians have suggested that the killers at Wiggans Patch were members of the Coal and Iron Police, because of the paramilitary-type action and the fact that that force has been viewed as violent and oppressive. However, there is no real evidence to sustain this contention, and the sheer numbers involved that December night make it hard to believe that one of them—a perpetrator or a colleague—would not have betrayed that fact in the ensuing years.

  What therefore seems most likely is that the men attacking the O’Donnell house were vigilantes who had gathered together for vengeance after learning the details in the materials released by Pinkerton’s, which included the names and addresses of those accused of the crimes. This concept was voiced as early as the day after the attack (Evening Chronicle, Dec. 11, 1875). If so, Pinkerton and his agency must shoulder some of the blame for encouraging such behavior, as must local newspapers, particularly Foster and the Herald.

  But did Pinkerton’s play a greater role? The obvious planning and efficiency of the operation suggest a mastermind behind the process, and Pinkerton’s letter indicates that Linden would have been an appropriate individual for this role. According to his expense account reports, Linden was not in Schuylkill County at the time of the attack, but that does not mean that he might not have set up the entire operation. That said, there is no evidence to indicate that Linden was involved, so while he cannot be eliminated as a suspect, there is no hard and fast reason to assume he was involved, either.

  It is thus difficult to say who ac
tually was responsible, although it could not have been a Pinkerton’s operation in its entirety—the agency simply did not have enough agents there. The vigilantes could have come in part from other local gangs, secret societies, or the Coal and Iron Police, but it is unlikely that either Gowen or Pinkerton’s would have encouraged participation by such units. What is more likely is that they were made up of individuals from several organizations—as in previous vigilance committees—to enforce what they perceived as justice. In this sense, the killers at Wiggans Patch were not very different than the Molly Maguires enforcing what Kenny generously called “retributive justice” and defined as “violence designed to redress violations against a particular understanding of what was socially right and wrong” (Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, pp. 8–9). Ergo, if the killings perpetrated by the Molly Maguires were legitimate, then so was the attack at Wiggans Patch.

  A lengthy discussion between two Molly Maguire experts—Mark Bulik and Dennis McCann—suggested that at least some of the Wiggans Patch vigilantes might have been members of the Silliman Guards. This was a militia company of initially sixty-three men formed in and around Mahanoy City in March 1875 in response to the disorders occurring during the Long Strike. It was named after E. S. Silliman, the president of the First National Bank, who contributed substantially to the cost of setting up the company (Davis et al., Mahanoy City, p. 74). The Silliman Guards were mustered into the National Guard in Nov. 1875, and it was written soon after: “As conservators of law and order the company has been eminently a success, providing a standing menace to the lawless element” (History of Schuylkill County, p. 232).

  The first lieutenant (second-in-command) of the Silliman Guards was Wenrich, who was not only a friend of George Major—who succeeded him as chief burgess of Mahanoy City—but of William Enke, a fellow member of the guards and a borough magistrate who was wounded in the violence that erupted between strikers and law-enforcement officers at Mahanoy City on June 3, 1875. One of the individuals reported to have engaged in “rapid shooting” against the law-enforcement organizations that day was Friday O’Donnell (AP, The Mollie Maguires and the Detectives, p. 335).

  Although all these facts are circumstantial, it is suspicious that the one individual ever identified from the attack was a colleague of two men who had been shot by members of the Molly Maguires, including one killed by someone living at the Wiggans Patch house, where several residents had also been named in the Pinkerton’s release as the killers of Sanger and Uren. It does not take a great stretch to imagine that Wenrich, as an officer of the Silliman Guards, would be able to co-opt members of his own organization—and undoubtedly other “community-minded” individuals—to seek revenge with military efficiency.

  75. Catholic Standard, Dec. 23, 1875; Daily Herald, Dec. 23, 1875; The New-York Times, Dec. 25, 1875.

  76. BF, in CAC, pp. 1322, 1321.

  77. RJL, in CAC, p. 1317.

  Chapter 8: Trials and Tribulations

  1. Daily Herald, Dec. 23, 1875; The New-York Times, Dec. 23, 1875.

  2. Daily Herald, Feb. 5, 1876.

  3. Charles Albright, quoted in The Great Mollie Maguire Trials, p. iv.

  4. It has long been suggested that Asa Packer financed the prosecution in the Molly Maguire trials. The Pennsylvania historian Lance Metz has argued that it was actually Edward Clark of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (Metz, “Edward W. Clark’s Role in the Carbon County Molly Maguire Trials”). There does not appear to be enough information to prove the argument definitively one way or the other, but what is certain is that Allen Craig—one of the initial prosecutors—represented both Packer and the Lehigh Valley Railroad.

  5. That “company lawyers” were allowed to join the prosecution in the Molly Maguire trials has been criticized as one of the most unethical aspects of the trials. However, this argument shows a lack of understanding of mid–nineteenth century legal practice. There was no objection at the time because private prosecution, although not as common as several decades previously, was still not infrequent and was acceptable in the eyes of the law, as it was recognized that the county district attorney would require aid to prosecute such an unusually large number of capital cases. Even Judge John P. Lavelle, whose book The Hard Coal Docket is perhaps the most notable condemnation of the fairness of the trials, acknowledged: “It was not unusual at this time for lawyers who represented a victim’s family to assist the district attorney in trying the case against the defendant” (p. 287). Lavelle thereafter stated that there were no cases where lawyers for the victim completely took over the prosecution, but this is clearly at odds with the legal processes of earlier times, as well as with his previous comments acknowledging that the district attorney was a relatively new position, with the first prosecutor in Carbon County not having been appointed until 1843 (p. 202). Further, although each of these men represented one of the companies, they were not employees but members of highly esteemed law practices representing those companies.

  6. The Mauch Chunk Democrat, Sept. 4, 1875; The Times (Philadelphia), Jan. 19, 1876.

  7. Lavelle, The Hard Coal Docket, pp. 291–99. Lavelle’s argument addressed only those trials held in Carbon County. He determined that less than 1 percent of the pool of perspective jurors for the initial trials was Irish, whereas fully 13 percent of the population of Carbon County was Irish, and he indicated that today such seemingly “purposeful or deliberate limitation of Irishmen in the jury pool” would “not pass constitutional muster” (p. 293), as “the defendants did not have the fair possibility for obtaining on their juries a representative cross section of the Irish community” (p. 298).

  Although Lavelle’s conclusion—that due to these errors the verdict would be overturned in today’s legal system—is undoubtedly accurate, his analysis was somewhat flawed by his failure to give adequate consideration to several salient points. First, the method by which the names of potential jurors were chosen from the “jury wheel” followed the customary practice of the time, and Lavelle showed that the percentage of Irish jurors had been below a representative level in every year since 1865 (pp. 291, 295). By showing a decade-long pattern of unfair representation, this also indicates that the Molly Maguire trials did not actually violate due process any more than any other trial in Carbon County during that period. Second, the jury pool was taken only from eligible voters, which in Pennsylvania at the time (as stated in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1874, Article VIII, Section 1) meant U.S. citizens who had resided in the state for a minimum of a year and the election district for at least two months, and who had paid state or county tax—referring to property tax—within the previous two years. These qualifications had the effect of eliminating not only recent immigrants from the jury pool but most of the poor, including a high percentage of the Irish laborers in the mining patches, in contrast to the land-owning farmers of (more usually) German or “Pennsylvania Dutch” extraction. Thus, the percentages compared were not representative of the figures actually being worked with. And third, Lavelle’s figures are suspect because he used an inexact method to determine the ancestry of those in the jury pool, particularly in distinguishing between Irish and Scottish names (with the result that one “Alexander Campbell” was listed as Scottish, although an Irish man with the same name was on trial as a member of the Molly Maguires).

  Finally, Lavelle’s assessment suffers—as do many recent interpretations of the Molly Maguire trials—from the self-congratulatory concept of historical presentism; that is, assessing, judging, or interpreting the past by use of present-day perspectives and beliefs, and thereby creating a distorted understanding of the events as they unfolded or were perceived at the time (see, for example, Hunt, “Against Presentism”). In this sense, Lavelle’s statements that “there was no case law or statutory law prohibiting this shameful practice” and that there were “many other aspects of the ‘Mollie’ trials which raise serious questions about whether t
he defendants received fair trials” neglect that many aspects of trial law throughout the nineteenth century would not meet current judicial standards, but that due process—like the human condition and behavior in general—is constantly changing and should not be judged through the prism of current standards or in order to validate current beliefs, but rather through the moral and societal values of the time in question (pp. 293, 322).

  8. See, for example, Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, p. 215; Lavelle, The Hard Coal Docket, p. 317.

  9. For example, there are five jurors in the Doyle trial mentioned by Lavelle as having “a poor understanding of the English language” (The Hard Coal Docket, pp. 317, 349–53). First, it should be noted that whereas several might have had some problems with the intricacies of legal jargon, so might many native English speakers. Moreover, a closer look at the voir dire suggests that three of these might not actually have had any more difficulty than any other juror. Juror William Bloss indicated that he understood German better than English, but this does not imply that he could not understand the details of a murder when presented in English, only that German was his native language. Juror Joel Strohl stated that he could not read or write English but that he could understand it; this is, in fact, no different than many jurors of the time of English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish descent—literacy was not a qualification and not something considered relevant to serve on a jury. And juror Daniel Remaley indicated that he did not understand English as well as he might, but, as with the previous two individuals, the defense lawyers did not consider his lack of understanding to be of such an extent that they challenged him.