Eckley Miners' Village
Encyclopedia
Eckley Miners' Village in eastern Pennsylvania
is an anthracite coal
mining
patch town located near Hazleton
, Luzerne County
, Pennsylvania
, in the United States
. Since 1970, Eckley has been owned and operated as a museum
by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
.
Estate. The inhabitants took advantage of the surrounding woodlands and made shingles to be sold in White Haven
and Hazleton. These goods were traded for the necessities of life, such as “whiskey, port, and tobacco
”.
, formed Sharpe, Leisenring and Company, later known as Sharpe, Weiss, and Company. Judge Charles Coxe of Philadelphia, executor of the Tench Coxe Estate, granted the company a 20-year lease for the establishment and operation of a colliery on these 1,500 acres (6 km²) of land. In 1854 the company began work on this, the Council Ridge Colliery.
By autumn of 1854, the company had constructed a saw mill to provide lumber
necessary for the colliery buildings, such as the breaker, stable
, and store house. They also began building a village to house the colliery workers. The scattered forest dwellings of the residents of Shingletown were quickly replaced by two rows of red wooden frame houses with black trim. This new village was called Fillmore, presumably in honor of President Millard Fillmore
who left office in 1853. Several years later, the company applied for a post office
for their town and learned that a town in Centre County had already appropriated the name. As a result, the town was renamed Eckley in 1857 in honor of Judge Coxe’s eldest son, Eckley B. Coxe who was then 17 years old. In later years, Eckley Coxe, an engineer, became involved in the operations in the town of his name.
and Welsh
immigrants who came from the mines in Great Britain
. There also were Germans living in the village who were brought to the colliery as engineers.
By the late 1850s and early 1860s these colliers were joined by groups of Irish
farmers who had immigrated to America after the devastating potato famine in their homeland. The Irish were generally unskilled in the field of mining and so received the lowest-skilled, lowest-paying jobs. Over time, the Irish learned the skills of mining and moved into better-paying, higher-skilled jobs. By the time of the 1880s and 1890s the low-skill jobs were being taken by the new wave of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe
. These groups included peoples from Slovakia
, Poland
, Ukraine
, Lithuania
, and Italy
. Once again, the new immigrants took many years to develop the knowledge and skills to move into the higher-skilled positions in the colliery.
Many of these immigrants came to America expecting to work in the mines just long enough to save money, buy land, and return to the farming lifestyle they had known in Europe. Once they became part of the company-owned system, however, very few were able to escape the years of poverty and hardship that faced them.
a 1970 film was filmed in Eckley in 1969. The town was so unchanged from its 1870s appearance that the only major alteration needed for filming was to remove television antennas and install underground electric wiring.
The wooden "coal breaker
" featured heavily in the film was built as a prop. It received little or no maintenance over the years and, even though it has been called a tinderbox
, it still stands today — over 40 years later.
The filming of the movie resulted in the town's being saved from demolition, and it was afterward turned into a mining museum under the control of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
.
In the nineteenth century, Irish immigrants transplanted a form of their Molly Maguire organization into America
and continued its activities as a clandestine society. Irish
miner
s in this organization employed the tactics of intimidation and violence previously used against Irish landlords in a violent confrontation against the anthracite, or hard coal mining companies in the 19th century. They were located in a section of the anthracite coal fields
dubbed the Coal Region
.
"The Mollys" were found in the counties of Lackawanna
, Luzerne
, Columbia
, Schuylkill
, Carbon
, and Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
.
This Irish coal-mining heritage contributed to their wave of violence, and continued well over ten years in the late 19th century in the United States. Although a legitimate self-help organization for Irish immigrants existed in the form of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
, the Molly Maguires existed as a secret organization behind this front. Both groups fought discrimination against Irish and Catholic
s. In the case of the Mollies, the fight took the form of violence and destruction, mimicking the attacks against English landlords in Ireland
, and the later sectarian intimidation of political and religious opponents in the first decades of the 20th century.
Many of the Mollies were miners and the mode of working the mines lent itself to their peculiar policy. Miners were paid by the cubic yard, by the mine car, or by the ton, and (in the driving of entries) by the lineal yard. In the assignment of places, which was made by the mining boss, there were "soft" jobs and hard. If a Molly applied for a soft job and was refused, his anger was aroused and not infrequently in due time the offending boss was murdered. If he got employment, there was a constant chance of disagreement in measuring-up the work and in estimating the quality of the coal mined, for it was the custom to dock the miners' wages for bad coal with too much slate and dirt, and a serious disagreement was apt to be followed by violence. Little wonder was it that, as the source of the outrages was well understood, mining bosses refused to employ Irishmen, but this did not ensure their safety, as they might then be murdered for their refusal. A good Superintendent of any colliery would, in his quality of superior officer, support an efficient mining boss and would thus fall under the ban himself. John T. Morse, Jr., who made a contemporaneous study of the Molly Maguires, wrote in his vivid account of their operations: "The superintendents and 'bosses' in the collieries could all rest assured that their days would not be long in the land. Everywhere and at all times they were attacked, beaten, and shot down, by day and by night; month after month and year after year, on the public highways and in their own homes, in solitary places and in the neighborhood of crowds, these doomed men continued to fall in frightful succession beneath the hands of assassins."
The murders were not committed in the heat of sudden passion for some fancied wrong: they were the result of a deliberate system. The wronged individual laid his case before a quasijudicial tribunal demanding the death, say, of a mining boss and urging his reasons. If they were satisfactory, as they usually were, the murder was decreed; but the task was not assigned to the aggrieved person or to any one in his and the victim's neighborhood: perhaps directly aggrieved parties might be tempted to use more force or more cruelty than necessary. Two or more relatively disinterested Mollies from a different part of the county or even from the adjoining county were selected to do the killing because, being unknown, they could the more easily escape detection. Refusal to carry out the dictate of the conclave was dangerous and seldom happened, although an arrangement of substitution, if properly supported, was permitted. The meeting generally took place in an upper room of a hotel or saloon and, after the serious business, came the social reunion with deep libations of whiskey.
In attempting to give precise figures, some writers have undoubtedly exaggerated the number of murders by this order from 1865 to 1875; but no one can go through the evidence without being convinced that a great many men were killed to satisfy the vengeful spirit of the Molly Maguires. Some of the victims were men so useful, so conspicuous, and so beloved in their communities that their assassinations caused a profound and enduring impression. In some cases, so Dewees (who has written a very useful story) asserts, robbery was added to murder: superintendents, who were carrying the money for the monthly pay of the miners and laborers, were waylaid as they drove along some lonely road in the desolate country. While the murders were numerous, still more numerous were the threats of murder and warnings to leave the country written on a sheet of paper with a rude picture of a coffin or a pistol and sometimes both. One notice read: "Mr. John Taylor-We will give you one week to go, but if you are alive on next Saturday you will die." Another, to three bosses, charged with "cheating thy men" had a picture of three pistols and a coffin and on the coffin was written, "This is your home." In other mining districts and in manufacturing localities, during strikes and times of turbulence similar warnings have been common and have been laughed at by mining bosses, superintendents, and proprietors; but, in the anthracite region between 1865 and 1876 the bravest of men could not forget how many of his fellows had been shot and suppress a feeling of uneasiness when he found such a missive on his doorstep or posted up on the door of his office at the mine. Many a superintendent and mining boss left his house in the morning with his hand on his revolver, wondering if he would ever see wife and children again.
Only young men of the order were chosen to commit murder; above them were older heads holding high office and, in a variety of ways, displaying executive ability. They were quick to see what a weapon to their hand was universal suffrage, and, with the aptitude for politics which the Irish have shown in our country, they developed their order into a political power to be reckoned with. Numbering in Schuylkill county only 500 or 600 out of 5,000 Irishmen in a total population of 116,000, the Molly Maguires controlled the common schools and the local government of the townships in the mining sections of the county. They elected at different times three county commissioners and came near electing one of their number, who had acquired twenty thousand dollars worth of property, Associate Judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In one borough a Molly was Chief of Police; another in Mahanoy township, Jack Kehoe, was High Constable.
The elections were marred by fraudulent voting, ballot-box stuffing, and false returns, the administration of the offices by fraud and robbery. In Mahanoy township, $60,000 was appropriated for the schools and eleven-twelfths of it stolen. Exorbitant road taxes were a fruitful means by which township officials robbed the taxpayers and put the money in their own pockets. In August 1875 an ex-county commissioner, a Molly; and two commissioners then in office, not actually belonging to the order but in sympathy with it, had been convicted of stealing the county funds and each had been sentenced by a full bench September 6 to two years' imprisonment. At the fall election for governor in this year (1875) the Molly Maguires, who were naturally Democrats, foresaw Republican success and sold their vote in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties to the Republicans for a certain amount of money in hand and an implied agreement that these convicted commissioners and other criminals who were called by a leading Molly "our men" should be pardoned. It is hardly to be supposed that the Republican politicians who made this bargain were aware of the thoroughly criminal nature of the Molly Maguires, for they had astutely covered themselves with a virtuous cloak, securing from the Legislature in 1871 a charter for the Ancient Order of Hibernians whose motto was "Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity." On October 10, 1875, in a letter to the Shenandoah Herald Jack Kehoe denied with indignation that the Molly Maguires were synonymous with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which latter was "composed of men who are law abiding and seek the elevation of their members." (2) Kehoe was crafty enough to see the advantage of throwing dust in the eyes of the public and, when the outside world was bargained with, the A.O.H. was put forward; but, as matter of fact, it was the old story of ravening wolves in sheep's clothing.
They were forced to disband in 1877 after being in existence for about thirty years because, in an effort commissioned by Reading Railroad president Franklin B. Gowen
(who was also at the time the most influential mine owner in the area), Pinkerton National Detective Agency
agents infiltrated the organization and informed on the activities of the members.
Mine foremen and their families rented the single dwellings located just east of the downtown. First class miners, those men with experience in mining, were assigned the -story double houses in the middle of the village. These were larger than the -story double dwellings rented to their assistants or laborers.
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
is an anthracite coal
Anthracite coal
Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster...
mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
patch town located near Hazleton
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Hazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census, an increase of 8.6% from the 2000 census count .-Greater Hazleton:...
, Luzerne County
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
- Demographics :As of the 2010 census, the county was 90.7% White, 3.4% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 3.3% were of some other race, and 1.5% were two or more races. 6.7% of the population was of Hispanic or Latino ancestry...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Since 1970, Eckley has been owned and operated as a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is the governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responsible for the collection, conservation and interpretation of Pennsylvania's historic heritage...
.
Early years
Before the 1850s Eckley was not a mining town, but a rural, forested community called Shingletown. It was located on land owned by the Tench CoxeTench Coxe
Tench Coxe was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian".-Biography:...
Estate. The inhabitants took advantage of the surrounding woodlands and made shingles to be sold in White Haven
White Haven, Pennsylvania
White Haven is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. White Haven was created in 1824 by industrialist Josiah White. It is located along the Lehigh River which connects White Haven to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The population was 1,182 at the 2000 census...
and Hazleton. These goods were traded for the necessities of life, such as “whiskey, port, and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
”.
Coal is discovered
In 1853, four prospectors came to Shingletown and found that the land contained several veins of coal. Within the year these four men, Richard Sharpe, Asa Foster, Francis Weiss and John LeisenringJohn Leisenring
John Leisenring was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.John Leisenring was born in Ashton, Pennsylvania, now known as Lansford, Carbon County, Pennsylvania. He attended two public schools, Schwartz’s Academy in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and an academy in...
, formed Sharpe, Leisenring and Company, later known as Sharpe, Weiss, and Company. Judge Charles Coxe of Philadelphia, executor of the Tench Coxe Estate, granted the company a 20-year lease for the establishment and operation of a colliery on these 1,500 acres (6 km²) of land. In 1854 the company began work on this, the Council Ridge Colliery.
By autumn of 1854, the company had constructed a saw mill to provide lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
necessary for the colliery buildings, such as the breaker, stable
Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
, and store house. They also began building a village to house the colliery workers. The scattered forest dwellings of the residents of Shingletown were quickly replaced by two rows of red wooden frame houses with black trim. This new village was called Fillmore, presumably in honor of President Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office of president...
who left office in 1853. Several years later, the company applied for a post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
for their town and learned that a town in Centre County had already appropriated the name. As a result, the town was renamed Eckley in 1857 in honor of Judge Coxe’s eldest son, Eckley B. Coxe who was then 17 years old. In later years, Eckley Coxe, an engineer, became involved in the operations in the town of his name.
European Immigrants
The first residents of Eckley were mostly EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
immigrants who came from the mines in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. There also were Germans living in the village who were brought to the colliery as engineers.
By the late 1850s and early 1860s these colliers were joined by groups of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
farmers who had immigrated to America after the devastating potato famine in their homeland. The Irish were generally unskilled in the field of mining and so received the lowest-skilled, lowest-paying jobs. Over time, the Irish learned the skills of mining and moved into better-paying, higher-skilled jobs. By the time of the 1880s and 1890s the low-skill jobs were being taken by the new wave of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. These groups included peoples from Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Once again, the new immigrants took many years to develop the knowledge and skills to move into the higher-skilled positions in the colliery.
Many of these immigrants came to America expecting to work in the mines just long enough to save money, buy land, and return to the farming lifestyle they had known in Europe. Once they became part of the company-owned system, however, very few were able to escape the years of poverty and hardship that faced them.
Film
The Molly MaguiresThe Molly Maguires (film)
The Molly Maguires is a 1970 American film based on a novel by Arthur H. Lewis that was directed by Martin Ritt. It stars Richard Harris and Sean Connery....
a 1970 film was filmed in Eckley in 1969. The town was so unchanged from its 1870s appearance that the only major alteration needed for filming was to remove television antennas and install underground electric wiring.
The wooden "coal breaker
Coal breaker
A coal breaker was a coal processing plant which broke coal into various useful sizes. Coal breakers also removed impurities from the coal and deposited them into a culm dump...
" featured heavily in the film was built as a prop. It received little or no maintenance over the years and, even though it has been called a tinderbox
Tinderbox
A tinderbox is a small container containing flint, firesteel, and tinder , used together to help kindle a fire....
, it still stands today — over 40 years later.
The filming of the movie resulted in the town's being saved from demolition, and it was afterward turned into a mining museum under the control of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is the governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responsible for the collection, conservation and interpretation of Pennsylvania's historic heritage...
.
Secret Society
The following history is drawn from James Ford Rhodes, the president of the American Historical Association, in an article in the then-leading scholarly journal, the American Historical Review. (April 1910), copyright expired. [N.B. This hostile view of the Mollies was written a century ago. "Revisionist" views, giving an entirely different perspective, have become commonplace in the past hundred years. See, e.g., the DVD (1998 release) entitled "The True Story of the Molly Maguires," available at History.com, and the separate Wikipedia article called "The Molly Maguires."]In the nineteenth century, Irish immigrants transplanted a form of their Molly Maguire organization into America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and continued its activities as a clandestine society. Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
miner
Miner
A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....
s in this organization employed the tactics of intimidation and violence previously used against Irish landlords in a violent confrontation against the anthracite, or hard coal mining companies in the 19th century. They were located in a section of the anthracite coal fields
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
dubbed the Coal Region
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a term used to refer to an area of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the central Appalachian Mountains comprising Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, and the extreme northeast corner of Dauphin counties....
.
"The Mollys" were found in the counties of Lackawanna
Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 213,295 people, 86,218 households, and 55,783 families residing in the county. The population density was 465 people per square mile . There were 95,362 housing units at an average density of 208 per square mile...
, Luzerne
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
- Demographics :As of the 2010 census, the county was 90.7% White, 3.4% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 3.3% were of some other race, and 1.5% were two or more races. 6.7% of the population was of Hispanic or Latino ancestry...
, Columbia
Columbia County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 64,151 people, 24,915 households, and 16,568 families residing in the county. The population density was 132 people per square mile . There were 27,733 housing units at an average density of 57 per square mile...
, Schuylkill
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania
-Notable people:*Boxing heavyweight great Muhammad Ali had his training camp in Deer Lake.*Charles Justin Bailey, commanding general of the 81st Division in World War I, was born in Tamaqua on June 21, 1859....
, Carbon
Carbon County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 58,802 people, 23,701 households, and 16,424 families residing in the county. The population density was 154 people per square mile . There were 30,492 housing units at an average density of 80 per square mile...
, and Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
Northumberland County, Pennsylvania
There were 38,835 households out of which 27.30% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.40% were married couples living together, 9.60% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.10% were non-families. 30.20% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.50% had...
.
This Irish coal-mining heritage contributed to their wave of violence, and continued well over ten years in the late 19th century in the United States. Although a legitimate self-help organization for Irish immigrants existed in the form of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be Catholic and either Irish born or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836...
, the Molly Maguires existed as a secret organization behind this front. Both groups fought discrimination against Irish and Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s. In the case of the Mollies, the fight took the form of violence and destruction, mimicking the attacks against English landlords in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and the later sectarian intimidation of political and religious opponents in the first decades of the 20th century.
Many of the Mollies were miners and the mode of working the mines lent itself to their peculiar policy. Miners were paid by the cubic yard, by the mine car, or by the ton, and (in the driving of entries) by the lineal yard. In the assignment of places, which was made by the mining boss, there were "soft" jobs and hard. If a Molly applied for a soft job and was refused, his anger was aroused and not infrequently in due time the offending boss was murdered. If he got employment, there was a constant chance of disagreement in measuring-up the work and in estimating the quality of the coal mined, for it was the custom to dock the miners' wages for bad coal with too much slate and dirt, and a serious disagreement was apt to be followed by violence. Little wonder was it that, as the source of the outrages was well understood, mining bosses refused to employ Irishmen, but this did not ensure their safety, as they might then be murdered for their refusal. A good Superintendent of any colliery would, in his quality of superior officer, support an efficient mining boss and would thus fall under the ban himself. John T. Morse, Jr., who made a contemporaneous study of the Molly Maguires, wrote in his vivid account of their operations: "The superintendents and 'bosses' in the collieries could all rest assured that their days would not be long in the land. Everywhere and at all times they were attacked, beaten, and shot down, by day and by night; month after month and year after year, on the public highways and in their own homes, in solitary places and in the neighborhood of crowds, these doomed men continued to fall in frightful succession beneath the hands of assassins."
The murders were not committed in the heat of sudden passion for some fancied wrong: they were the result of a deliberate system. The wronged individual laid his case before a quasijudicial tribunal demanding the death, say, of a mining boss and urging his reasons. If they were satisfactory, as they usually were, the murder was decreed; but the task was not assigned to the aggrieved person or to any one in his and the victim's neighborhood: perhaps directly aggrieved parties might be tempted to use more force or more cruelty than necessary. Two or more relatively disinterested Mollies from a different part of the county or even from the adjoining county were selected to do the killing because, being unknown, they could the more easily escape detection. Refusal to carry out the dictate of the conclave was dangerous and seldom happened, although an arrangement of substitution, if properly supported, was permitted. The meeting generally took place in an upper room of a hotel or saloon and, after the serious business, came the social reunion with deep libations of whiskey.
In attempting to give precise figures, some writers have undoubtedly exaggerated the number of murders by this order from 1865 to 1875; but no one can go through the evidence without being convinced that a great many men were killed to satisfy the vengeful spirit of the Molly Maguires. Some of the victims were men so useful, so conspicuous, and so beloved in their communities that their assassinations caused a profound and enduring impression. In some cases, so Dewees (who has written a very useful story) asserts, robbery was added to murder: superintendents, who were carrying the money for the monthly pay of the miners and laborers, were waylaid as they drove along some lonely road in the desolate country. While the murders were numerous, still more numerous were the threats of murder and warnings to leave the country written on a sheet of paper with a rude picture of a coffin or a pistol and sometimes both. One notice read: "Mr. John Taylor-We will give you one week to go, but if you are alive on next Saturday you will die." Another, to three bosses, charged with "cheating thy men" had a picture of three pistols and a coffin and on the coffin was written, "This is your home." In other mining districts and in manufacturing localities, during strikes and times of turbulence similar warnings have been common and have been laughed at by mining bosses, superintendents, and proprietors; but, in the anthracite region between 1865 and 1876 the bravest of men could not forget how many of his fellows had been shot and suppress a feeling of uneasiness when he found such a missive on his doorstep or posted up on the door of his office at the mine. Many a superintendent and mining boss left his house in the morning with his hand on his revolver, wondering if he would ever see wife and children again.
Only young men of the order were chosen to commit murder; above them were older heads holding high office and, in a variety of ways, displaying executive ability. They were quick to see what a weapon to their hand was universal suffrage, and, with the aptitude for politics which the Irish have shown in our country, they developed their order into a political power to be reckoned with. Numbering in Schuylkill county only 500 or 600 out of 5,000 Irishmen in a total population of 116,000, the Molly Maguires controlled the common schools and the local government of the townships in the mining sections of the county. They elected at different times three county commissioners and came near electing one of their number, who had acquired twenty thousand dollars worth of property, Associate Judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In one borough a Molly was Chief of Police; another in Mahanoy township, Jack Kehoe, was High Constable.
The elections were marred by fraudulent voting, ballot-box stuffing, and false returns, the administration of the offices by fraud and robbery. In Mahanoy township, $60,000 was appropriated for the schools and eleven-twelfths of it stolen. Exorbitant road taxes were a fruitful means by which township officials robbed the taxpayers and put the money in their own pockets. In August 1875 an ex-county commissioner, a Molly; and two commissioners then in office, not actually belonging to the order but in sympathy with it, had been convicted of stealing the county funds and each had been sentenced by a full bench September 6 to two years' imprisonment. At the fall election for governor in this year (1875) the Molly Maguires, who were naturally Democrats, foresaw Republican success and sold their vote in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties to the Republicans for a certain amount of money in hand and an implied agreement that these convicted commissioners and other criminals who were called by a leading Molly "our men" should be pardoned. It is hardly to be supposed that the Republican politicians who made this bargain were aware of the thoroughly criminal nature of the Molly Maguires, for they had astutely covered themselves with a virtuous cloak, securing from the Legislature in 1871 a charter for the Ancient Order of Hibernians whose motto was "Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity." On October 10, 1875, in a letter to the Shenandoah Herald Jack Kehoe denied with indignation that the Molly Maguires were synonymous with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which latter was "composed of men who are law abiding and seek the elevation of their members." (2) Kehoe was crafty enough to see the advantage of throwing dust in the eyes of the public and, when the outside world was bargained with, the A.O.H. was put forward; but, as matter of fact, it was the old story of ravening wolves in sheep's clothing.
They were forced to disband in 1877 after being in existence for about thirty years because, in an effort commissioned by Reading Railroad president Franklin B. Gowen
Franklin B. Gowen
Franklin Benjamin Gowen served as president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in the 1870s and 1880s....
(who was also at the time the most influential mine owner in the area), Pinkerton National Detective Agency
Pinkerton National Detective Agency
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
agents infiltrated the organization and informed on the activities of the members.
Town Geography
Traveling east to west down Main Street the houses become larger toward the end of town. Like most industrial companies of the 19th century, Sharpe, Weiss and Company planned the village with the occupation and rent paying abilities of their workers in mind. In Eckley, the mine owners lived at the western end of town. The original company store, mule barn, hotel, and doctor’s office were located there as well.Mine foremen and their families rented the single dwellings located just east of the downtown. First class miners, those men with experience in mining, were assigned the -story double houses in the middle of the village. These were larger than the -story double dwellings rented to their assistants or laborers.
See also
- Coal RegionCoal RegionThe Coal Region is a term used to refer to an area of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the central Appalachian Mountains comprising Lackawanna, Luzerne, Columbia, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northumberland, and the extreme northeast corner of Dauphin counties....
- anthracite coalAnthracite coalAnthracite is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster...
- Pennsylvania Historical and Museum CommissionPennsylvania Historical and Museum CommissionThe Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is the governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responsible for the collection, conservation and interpretation of Pennsylvania's historic heritage...
- The Molly Maguires (film)The Molly Maguires (film)The Molly Maguires is a 1970 American film based on a novel by Arthur H. Lewis that was directed by Martin Ritt. It stars Richard Harris and Sean Connery....