Added notes -- The Molly Maguires of Pennsylvania got their name from a secret society active in Ireland just before the Famine. According to one popular story, Molly Maguire was an old woman theatened with eviction from her cottage. In PA, a powerful trade union movement, the Workingmen's Benevolent Association (WBA), became the largest union in the nation. In a series of strikes in the late 1860s and early 1870s, the union won important victories, not the least of which was recognition by the employers and the linking of wages to the price of coal. But in the 1870s, it met its seemingly unbeatable rival in the person of Franklin B. Gowen. President of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co., Gowen was determined to destroy all obstacles in his way, including small-scale entrepreneurs, trade unionists and the Molly Maguires. Half of the leaders of the union were Irish-born. The Mollys, composed of Irishmen and favoring tactics of violence, acted as a shadow organization. To gather information against the Mollys, Gowen hired America's foremost private detective, Allan Pinkerton. At the end of 1874, Gowen declared war on the trade union, inaugurating the famous "Long Strike," which would culminate in the union's defeat and callapse in June 1875. Between mid-June and early September, the Mollys assassinated a policeman, a justice of the peace, a miner, two mine foremen, and a mine superintendent. Two years later, the Molly Maguires were brought to trial. More than 50 men, women, and children were indicted. The star prosecutor at the great showcase trials in Pottsville was none other than Franklin B. Gowen. Twenty Molly Maguires were hanged in all, ten of them on a single day, June 21, 1877, know to the people of the anthracite region as Black Thursday. Per, "The Irish In America," Coffey & Golway, a list of fugitive Mollie Maguires (1879) was distributed by the Allan Pinkerton office which named and described appearance of fugitives William Love, Thomas Hurley, Michael Doyle, James (Alias Friday) O'Donnell, James McAllister, John (Alias Humpty) Flynn, Jerry Kane, Frank Keenan, William Gavin, John Reagan, Thomas O'Neill, and Patrick B. (Alias Pug Nose Pat) Gallagher. If you are interested in the Molly Maguires of Pennsylvania and Allan Pinkerton and the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, the above-named wanted men, I posted a couple notes to Rootsweb Message Boards re same. Also check Internet Search Engines. (I believe Mr. Pinkerton had emigrated from Scotland). Others listed with the Pinkerton agency were Geo. H. Bancs (?sp. poss. Bangs), Gen. Supt., Robert A. Pinkerton, Supt., 55 Exchange Plan, NY; R. J. Linden, Supt. 45 S. Third St., Philadelphia; F. Warner, Supt. 191 & 193 Fifth Ave., Chicago & W. A. Pinkerton, same Chicago address; Clarence A. Seward, Agency's Attorney, 29 Nassau St., NY. ----- Original Message ----- From: <jbdiv@aol.com> To: <drumkeeranfolk@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 8:15 PM Subject: Re: [drumkeeranfolk] Re: White Boys and Mollie Maguires Molly Maguires This is one of those things about which people differ. Were they poor, innocent Irish coal miners trying to form a union or were they terrorists? My recollection is that a number of coal miners (terrorists) were hung based on McPartland's testimony. Who knows, but I remember reading that one man (Carrol, I think) said he was innocent and put his hand print into the dry, hard cement of his cell wall. The print was visible until a WPS project in the 1930s plastered over the wall. I have no way of knowing if this is true. If one's bias is pro-union, I think one could say a Mr. Kehoe, a saloon owner, was hung because he could read and write and therefore was considered very dangerous to the mine owners. If one's bias is the other way, one would conclude that his ability to read and write made him a key organizer of the terrorists. In 1906, in Idaho, another group of union organizers or terrorists was on trial. The prime witness against them was again Mr. McPartland. At this trial, (I think it was called Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone), McPartland's testimony was thrown out and the judge said he was a pathological liar. I think few could dispute that Alan Pinkerton had little love of labor unions, but that does not mean McPartland was or was not an honest man. Jim Durkin