Pinkerton’s Great Detective

by Beau Riffenburgh

  Kerrigan and Duffy thereafter asked James Roarity, the bodymaster in Coaldale, if he would kill Yost, offering him “$10.00 for his trouble—there is always a little trouble when a house is burned, or a man is shot.”19 Roarity promised to either do the deed himself or find others who would. After some delay, on the night of July 5, Kerrigan, Duffy, and the two men selected by Roarity—McGehan and Boyle—met at Carroll’s saloon. Roarity had initially accompanied them, but had returned home when he received a message that his wife was ill. McGehan took Roarity’s revolver, and Carroll handed a one-shot pistol to Boyle but recommended that they postpone the killing, because the policemen had stopped by the tavern together, and it would be too dangerous if they were working in tandem. McGehan, however, declared that his feet were sore and that “they come three times to Tamaqua to do the job and they were disappointed and by their God, they would not go home that night until they did do it.”20

  Kerrigan led McGehan and Boyle to the cemetery, where they could watch the streetlamp until Yost and McCarron approached, while Duffy remained at Carroll’s, where he would spend the night so he would have an alibi.21 Kerrigan then went home to set up his own alibi, and later met the Summit Hill men at the cemetery. At that point he said he “wanted to have a hand in the play, and stated that he would take two rocks after Yost fell, and he would knock his brains out.”22 But McGehan objected, so Kerrigan went to the tavern, where he had a drink with McCarron and bought a cigar for Yost. Then, from a distance of about seventy yards, he watched the two men approach Yost when McCarron wandered off and saw the flashes from the gun as they shot him at point-blank range. Kerrigan met up with them after they fled and guided them on a circuitous route to the White Bear tavern, where he left them at the road that led straight to Summit Hill. Despite their efforts to avoid anyone else up late that night, the killers did happen to meet a former member of the AOH on the road home, although they attempted to dismiss his surprised reaction by saying they were returning from a holiday ball.23

  A payment, in the form of another murder, was now due, but before it could be made, Campbell—whom McParlan had determined was one of the most influential Molly Maguires—brokered a new deal. McGehan and miner Tom Mulhall had sworn revenge against a Welsh “inside boss” named John P. Jones, who they said had blacklisted them with the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company.24 Campbell, according to McParlan, insisted on the murder of Jones in exchange for that of Yost, but he wanted things to “remain quiet for the present” before securing his murderers.25

  McParlan was stunned by the ease with which he had discovered the essence of the story, and, although still far from knowing all the details, he sent a report to Franklin mentioning the threat to Jones, although there was some confusion as to whether the man’s name was Jones or Jennings.26 Shortly thereafter, he was introduced to McGehan at Campbell’s saloon, and described him as “About 5 ft 9 inches high—straight and well built, probably weighs from 165 to 175 lbs, about twenty three years of age, rather light complexion, face clean shaved.” The same afternoon, McParlan’s hot streak regarding confessions continued, as Roarity implicated himself with the admission that the murder had been “a clean job.”27

  McParlan left town, and for several anxious days performed tasks for Kehoe and his other AOH colleagues in Shenandoah and Pottsville while trying to get as much rest as possible to avoid becoming ill again. All the while he eagerly anticipated going back to Tamaqua to obtain corroborating testimony and find the murder weapons, but he worried constantly about giving his game away. His mind was set at rest at his first stop back, when Carroll warned him to be careful, as the town had been “swarming with detectives ever since the murder,” although the taverner proudly commented that he had seen through their disguises. But to his brother in the AOH, Carroll readily admitted that he had provided the single-shot pistol used for the murder.28

  McParlan’s combination of luck and skilful manipulation resumed its remarkable run only two days later, when the string of confessions continued during a visit to Kerrigan. Coincidentally, Kerrigan and a couple other men had initially been scheduled to kill Jones the night McParlan called, but since Campbell had put the murder on hold, Kerrigan was there when the detective arrived.29 It did not take long for McParlan to get the egotistical bodymaster to open up. Pulling out a .32 caliber revolver he had been given by Linden, the detective bragged that he had stolen it. In a game of one-upmanship, Kerrigan himself produced a gun, Roarity’s he said, which “Fixed Yost.” When McParlan feigned disbelief, Kerrigan not only admitted he had planned the murder and had been there when it was carried out, but also divulged new details, including that Yost had “hollered like a panther.”30 McParlan had received a direct admission of guilt.

  But McParlan had more than the confession to think about that night, for while drinking with Kerrigan he was reintroduced to the bodymaster’s sister-in-law, Mary Ann Higgins. McParlan was immediately attracted to the blue-eyed lass, whom he had met briefly many months earlier at a Polish wedding. Now, however, he realized that she would provide a brilliant cover for his investigation, so he promptly began “sparking”—courting—her, admitting later that “it was not for the sake of throwing off suspicion on Kerrigan’s part that I made love to his sister-in-law, but to throw off any suspicion there might be as to my object in stopping around Tamaqua.”31

  With Mary Ann as the apparent reason, McParlan spent more and more time with Kerrigan, attempting to corroborate the confession. Several times he attempted to talk Kerrigan into going out for an evening walk near the cemetery, where Linden would be hiding behind a hedge and could hear the conversation, but the plan was never carried off.32

  Linden did gain other information, however. “[T]he Summit Hill [Jones] assassination has been postponed until a couple of men get work, to avoid the suspicion which would naturally attach to them if they were idle,” he wrote. “It is decided that the job shall be done in daylight by four men, one to point out the boss, one to keep the way for retreat clear, and two to do the shooting.” He also discovered that the man was “to be shot at Ashton, on the old railroad track. I did not learn the boss’s name.”33

  At the same time, McParlan also made headway. In early August he had eye-opening conversations with Carroll, Kerrigan, and Campbell, the last revealing the reasons behind the murder of Yost and indicating “that he calculated for to start McGehan in a saloon for the clean job that he had done at Tamaqua.” Campbell also confirmed that he had stopped Kerrigan’s scheduled murder the week before, because “[w]hat he wanted was to get McGehan settled in his saloon and Mulhall at work and then they would try to get the men to murder Jones.”34

  That same evening, Carroll not only confirmed what Campbell had said, but provided fuller details about the next target.35 “Jones is the boss who is to be assassinated,” Linden wrote confidently the day after McParlan had gained the information, “but it has been postponed until the last of the month, and after the Molly Maguire convention which is to be held at Tamaqua on the 25th.”36 Nevertheless, Franklin reported the information to Beard and the committee, as well as to Jones’s employers, while also ordering Linden and several of his men to stay in Tamaqua and shadow any Molly Maguires involved, so that when the attempt was made he could “surround them if they went to Summit Hill, and ambush them, if necessary, and shoot them down if they undertook it.”37

  Further measures were evidently also taken to protect Jones. After discussions with Charles Parrish, the head of the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, and William Zehner, general superintendent of the company’s Lansford mines, Captain T. C. Williams of the Coal and Iron Police detailed two officers to guard Jones at his home each night. For several weeks, however, Jones actually slept under guard at Zehner’s house, since he also was considered a target.38

  Meanwhile, McParlan and Linden traveled to Mauch Chunk to meet Franklin and a Pinkerton’s operative named Spittall. They traveled out to the beautiful
hills of Glen Onoko, where they discussed putting Spittall undercover in Summit Hill to be ready for action. The plan was ultimately abandoned due to the risk of sending a stranger there.39

  On their return to Mauch Chunk, the four split up, with McParlan and Linden continuing their conversation over a drink at the American Hotel. Upon exiting they saw a group of men across the street at the courthouse, among them Campbell, McGehan, and Barney Philips, the county recorder. Ditching Linden, whom he claimed was a drunk who had asked directions, McParlan joined the others for a beer, and in the ensuing conversation Campbell stated that he “had got a license for McGehan to start his saloon . . . for he considered McGehan was the best man in the County on account of the clean job he had done in Tamaqua. Now, all that was to be done was to get Jones out of the way.”40

  • • •

  With a license in his pocket, Campbell as his liquor distributor, and an $8-a-month lease on a basement room at the corner of Ludlow and Oak streets in Summit Hill, McGehan was ready to open his saloon, and the date was scheduled for Thursday, August 12. McParlan arrived on the day to find that, due to difficulties with the occupier of the other part of the house, the opening had been postponed. Welcomed to spend a couple of nights at Campbell’s house, McParlan later testified that on the next evening, Campbell “described to me the house where John P. Jones lived as near as he could describe it and informed me that he left his house . . . somewhere before seven o’clock, and taking an old railroad track to the mines . . . he stated ‘this is the place to have the men placed to shoot him just as he comes out in the morning and goes to his work.’”41

  Two days late, on a raucous Saturday evening, McGehan’s saloon finally opened. Following Linden’s instructions, McParlan approached the new taverner and quietly asked if he had cartridges for a .32 caliber revolver. McGehan took him into a side room, where he said, “I have no cartridges, Mac, that will fit that pistol. James Roarity has, and I guess you can get a few from him.” He continued confidentially: “Roarity is kind of cautious about purchasing any cartridges to fit his pistol, on account of it being the weapon I used to shoot officer Yost.”42 McGehan then gave the detective a firsthand account of the murder. The next morning, while attending church with Roarity, McParlan invited him to have a drink at McGehan’s. There he used the same subterfuge, and while in the company of both Roarity and McGehan, the former admitted to owning the gun, and both confessed their roles in the crime.43

  McParlan felt inwardly triumphant at having so fully cracked the case, and was buoyed up for his further investigations by the knowledge that no longer would murderers feel safe after their crimes. Little did he know that all hell was breaking loose across the major towns of the area that very night, including two more sensational murders.

  So widespread were the troubles that the headline in the next Weekly Miners’ Journal read “A Bloody Night North of the Mountain.”44 In Girardville, armed gangs drinking and shooting guns in the air wandered the streets “absolutely rampant and defiant of lawful restraints.” In Jacob Wendel’s bar, a man named Hoary assaulted another patron, and when the latter went to the house of Squire Thomas Gwyther, a justice of the peace, to demand his arrest, Hoary’s friend Billy Love barged in. Gwyther ejected Love from his house, but when the justice began to step out of his door, a pistol was leveled at him. As his daughter screamed for the gunman not to hurt her father, Gwyther was shot down on the porch. John Kehoe, as high constable, quickly arrested Thomas Love, only to release him when the murderer transpired to be his brother, who in the interim had fled, never to be caught.45

  Meanwhile, in Mahanoy City, Bully Bill Thomas, already back on the prowl, was wounded by a bullet in the face when he engaged in a shoot-out with Irishman James Dugan. As the lead flew, a stray bullet killed Christian Brenhower, a German miner walking nearby. Thomas was arrested for assaulting Dugan, but neither man was prosecuted for shooting the bystander.

  But it was at Glover’s Grove, just outside Shenandoah, that the most startling killing took place. That same night, during a picnic for the volunteer Rescue Hook and Ladder Company, Gomer James—who had remained in the area even after being removed from his job for his own safety—was drawing a beer behind the counter of an outside bar when a man strolled up, pulled out a revolver, and shot him dead. As the scene erupted in chaos, the murderer walked into the crowd and vanished.46

  The identity of the killer was not a mystery to the members of the Shenandoah AOH, however. That night Mike Carey rushed breathlessly into their meeting and blurted out, “Tom Hurley has shot Gomer James.” Two days later, having heard about the killing while in Tamaqua, McParlan returned to Shenandoah, where he was given the details by Hurley, Lawler, and John Morris. Lawler then pressed McParlan to see Kehoe about a reward for Hurley for carrying out the “long-overdue” assignment. When the detective went to Girardville the next day, Kehoe postponed any decision until the Schuylkill County AOH convention, which was scheduled to be held in a week and a half, on Wednesday, August 25.47

  Meanwhile, the very night McParlan returned to Shenandoah, there was yet another attempted murder. James Riles, a saloonkeeper, had previously pressed charges against a Molly Maguire by the name of John Tobin—who had shot Riles earlier in the year—with the result that Tobin was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. In response, James McAllister and several other men—thought to include Tobin, who was out on bond—walked into Riles’s saloon and shot him in the back.48

  Things then quieted down, as, according to Linden, “no more murders were to be committed until after the convention of the 25th.”49 The day prior to that McParlan spent the morning tending bar for Carroll, who was at a funeral, and when Campbell came by, he “asked me to help to get men to shoot John P. Jones. . . . [H]e could not depend upon the man Kerrigan to get the men for the reason why he supposed Kerrigan would get drunk.” Once again, McParlan saw no way out of the situation and felt compelled to agree.50

  The convention held the next day—on the second floor of Carroll’s house—was attended by “Sleepers here from all parts of the County,” although with no general session most of them remained in the saloon while an appointed committee conducted business in the rooms upstairs. Some members were expelled, others readmitted, but it was only in the late afternoon that Hurley’s claim to have killed James arose. Then, to the surprise of the men from Shenandoah, it was disputed by John McClain of Number 3 Hill, who insisted he had carried out the assignment. McParlan and Patrick Butler, the bodymaster at Lost Creek, were appointed to investigate and make a final determination.51

  Then came discussions about future “actions,” such as the potential murder of Amos Lamberson, a policeman who had killed an Irishman two years before.52 No decision was made, but John Reese, a mine superintendent at the Plank Ridge Colliery, was not so fortunate and was targeted for murder.53 Finally, Kerrigan, along with Duffy and McParlan (who volunteered at the direction of Linden), were assigned to eliminate Jones, although no specific time was set.54

  In the days immediately following the convention, two other names were mentioned as candidates for murder, and neither made the Pinkerton’s men happy. Hurley had concerns about Linden—who had been discovered to be in the Coal and Iron Police (although not yet that he was a Pinkerton’s agent)—and said that if he “was spooking about anything not right they would shoot him on arrival in Shenandoah.” When McParlan informed Linden, the latter returned the favor, letting McParlan know that he “was suspected by the Welsh and English of being the instigator of all the murders as it is generally supposed that he is a leader of the Molly Maguires, and they threaten to have revenge on him if any more murders are committed.”55

  For the time being, no one was safe.

  CHAPTER 7

  MURDER AND VIGILANTE VENGEANCE

  The murder of policeman Yost was not the only killing McParlan was unable to prevent because he had not heard enough in advance. On the morning of August 31�
��the week after the county convention—he woke to find Michael Doyle, with whom he shared a room, asleep next to him, and a Smith & Wesson revolver on the washstand. Knowing Doyle did not own one, McParlan woke him and asked about it. “[H]e told me he got it from Ed Monaghan,” McParlan wrote, adding that Doyle, along with James McAllister and the brothers Charles and James “Friday” O’Donnell “were going down to Raven Run to shoot Sanger, the mining boss just as he went out to get dinner.”1 Doyle also asked McParlan for his gray coat, as “he would like to get one of mine to prevent detection afterward. . . . I told him to take it.”2

  McParlan and Doyle had just gone downstairs for breakfast when Hurley—who lived in the next street—arrived. Buoyed by his murder of James—with which McParlan and Butler’s investigation had just credited him3—he gave a detailed demonstration to Doyle about how best to kill a man. Hoping for confirmation of the intended victim’s name, McParlan wandered into town, where he ran into James O’Donnell, who told him that “his brother and McAllister went to work that morning, and that they were working with members of the organization and could easily slip out, and they were bound to shoot him [Sanger] at noon-time.”4

  So McParlan had only a few hours to act, but he could neither find Linden, nor get away from Hurley: “I made several excuses during the day and Hurley was always ready to go along; he did not seem to have any particular business.”5 Every effort ended in failure: “I tried to shun Hurley and despatch to you, as I do not know where L. is but I could not manage,” he wrote, knowing that by the time Franklin received the report a man would have been killed.6 But what, he asked himself, could he do, short of taking action that might expose his role?