Mollie Maguires Murder Wm. H. Littlehales, March 15, 1869, Which Brings Detective McParlan to the Coal Regions

The bloody record of the Mollie Maguires during the decade 1865 to 1875 marks the darkest and most terrible period in the history of the anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania.

This was a secret organization, composed of lawless Irishmen, who resorted to murder in its most cowardly form, to attain their ends and satisfy their revengeful feelings toward mine owners, superintendents and bosses, and also justices of the peace and borough officials who had the integrity to administer justice, and not cringe before these criminals, when under arrest.

The members of this organization became unusually active and bloodthirsty in 1865. On August 25 of that year David Muir, a colliery superintendent, was cruelly murdered in Foster Township, Schuylkill County; January 10, 1866, Henry H. Dunne, superintendent of a colliery and one of the leading citizens of Pottsville, was murdered on the public road, near his home.

There were other crimes committed by the members of this organization, but those which most aroused the indignation of the public were where prominent men were killed from ambush for no apparent reason than that they held responsible position in a coal company.

October 17, 1868, Alexander Rea was murdered near Centralia, Columbia County, and this crime was the most heinous up to this time. Arrests were made, and a strong chain of circumstantial evidence made out by the Commonwealth against them. One of the accomplices even gave out the facts which caused the apprehension of the others.

Separate trials were granted by the Columbia County Court, and Thomas Donahue was tried first. He was defended by Messrs. Ryon, Freeze, Strouse, Wolverton and Marr. He was acquitted February, 1869. The others, Pat Hester, Peter McHugh, and Pat Tully, were not then placed on trial.

But the next and most important outrage committed by the Mollie Maguires was the murder of William H. Littlehales, superintendent of the Glen Carbon Coal Company, in Cass Township, Schuylkill County.

This crime occurred March 15, 1869, on the main highway leading from his home to the mines. The act was witnessed by several persons, but the assassins escaped.

It was this act which caused Hon. Franklin B. Gowen, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, and the Philadelphia 193and Reading Coal and Iron Company to send for Mr. Allan Pinkerton, and engage his services in dispersing this murderous crew.

Mr. Pinkerton accepted the employment offered him and assigned to the principal task a young man named James McParlan, a native of Ireland, aged twenty-eight years.

McParlan set out on his mission Monday, October 27, 1873, in the disguise of a vagabond Irishman seeking employment in the mines, and as a criminal who was seeking refuge from crimes committed in the vicinity of Buffalo, N. Y.

He assumed the name of James McKenna, and as such won his way into the confidence of the Mollies, joined their organization and became known as the most desperate Mollie in all the anthracite region.

Many others were murdered after McParlan arrived in the region. He prevented murder when it was possible to do so. He warned those who were to be victims through Mr. Franklin, superintendent of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal Company, with whom he kept in daily contact by clever correspondence.

Up to the hour that James McParlan arrived in Schuylkill County, no information had been obtained concerning the identity of those who murdered Littlehales, nor had it been possible to convict a single Mollie Maguire in any court where they were brought to trial.

Another crime which McParlan was sent to investigate was the murder of Morgan Powell, at Summit Hill, Carbon County, which occurred December 2, 1871. These were enough to occupy the time of a man even as clever as Detective McParlan alias James McKenna.

During the more than two years that McParlan lived among the Mollies he did not learn the murderers of Littlehales but succeeded in bringing to justice many other murderers.

The arrests quickly followed one another when once begun early in 1876. The trials began in Mauch Chunk in March. While McParlan did not testify in the first case he furnished very valuable information, and greatly assisted the prosecution.

Then followed the arrest and trial of others in Pottsville, Mauch Chunk and Bloomsburg with the conviction of many.

McParlan went upon the stand in the trial of James Carrol, Thomas Duffy, James Roarty, Hugh McGehan, and James Boyle, for the murder of B. F. Yost, which occurred at Tamaqua, July 6, 1875. This trial was held at Pottsville, before a full bench of Hon. C. L. Pershing, D. B. Green and T. H. Walker. James Kerrigan, a Mollie, was a witness for the Commonwealth.

The trial of Thomas Munley in June, 1876, in the same court, for the murder of Thomas Sanger and William Uren, brought Mr. F. B. Gowen into the case and the delivery of his wonderful speech, which will ever remain one of the greatest in the history of the criminal courts of our State.

194The Mollies were convicted of murder in the first degree and paid the extreme penalty on the gallows.

Many other Mollies were hanged, and on May 21, 1877, Governor J. F. Hartranft issued warrants for the execution of eight of the Mollie Maguires, which brought to an end the bloody record of this nefarious organization.