A woodcut showing Tom Hurley murdering Gomer James at an evening picnic.
Robert J. Linden, McParlan’s primary Pinkerton’s contact in the anthracite region, who later headed the agency’s Philadelphia office.
The small pistol that was used in the murders of both Policeman Yost and John P. Jones.
McParlan testifying during the trial of Kehoe and eight others for the attempted murder of “Bully Bill” Thomas.
The famous “cowboy detective” Charlie Siringo, armed with his Colt .45 and a walking stick with a hidden 20-inch blade.
“Doc” Shores, the sheriff of Gunnison County, Colorado, and sometimes a special Pinkerton’s operative, was one of the most respected lawmen in the history of the Old West.
Charlie Siringo and his good friend and fellow “cowboy detective” W. B. Sayers on the trail of outlaws.
Tom Horn, the famed Old West scout, lawman, hired gun, detective, and killer.
Josephine Barnaby, the wealthy widow whose murder by poison initiated one of McParland’s most high-profile cases.
The tiny mining town of Gem, Idaho, showing how Siringo escaped from the mob hoping to kill him. A: Siringo’s house, where he sawed a hole in the floor. B: Hotel through which Siringo crawled through a window to escape on one of his surreptitious visits to the mine. C: Saloon building, to the back of which Siringo crawled from under the sidewalk. D: Miners’ Union hall. E: Where Siringo entered the culvert. F: House next to which Siringo emerged from the culvert. G: Daxon’s saloon. H: Company store.
The notorious train and bank robber Robert LeRoy Parker, better known by his adopted name of Butch Cassidy.
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, with his partner Etta Place, before they sailed for South America in 1901.
The portrait of the Wild Bunch taken in Fort Worth in 1900. From left: Harry Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid; Will “News” Carver; Ben “the Tall Texan” Kilpatrick; Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry; and Butch Cassidy.
Frank Steunenberg, the former governor of Idaho who was assassinated on December 30, 1905.
The Steunenberg house. The fence, path, and total lack of a gate show the effects of Harry Orchard’s bomb.
Albert Horsley, alias Thomas Hogan and Harry Orchard, at the time of his arrest for the assassination of Frank Steunenberg.
The Great Detective at the time of the trial of William “Big Bill” Haywood.
James H. Hawley, one of Idaho’s greatest lawyers and politicians, and the lead prosecutor in the trial of William Haywood.
Steve Adams was tried for murder three times but was never convicted.
McParland’s “Inner Circle” of the Western Federation of Miners awaiting trial. From left: George Pettibone, William Haywood, and Charles Moyer.
The defense team in the murder trial of William Haywood. From left: Edgar Wilson, Leon Whitsell, John Nugent, Fred Miller, Clarence Darrow, and Edmund Richardson.
Idaho senator William Borah, the associate counsel for the prosecution in the trial of William Haywood.
Judge Fremont Wood, whose directions to the jury in the murder trial of William Haywood helped ensure a not-guilty verdict.
Harry Orchard after having been spruced up in preparation for the trial of William Haywood.
Orchard giving testimony during Haywood’s trial. In front of him are the court reporters, and Haywood and his defense team sit around a table, with Darrow chin in hand.
The Great Detective and his cowboy sidekick: McParland and Siringo chatting together in Boise during the Haywood trial.
The grave marker of McParland and his wife Mary at Mount Olivet Cemetery, with the mysterious date given for his birth. The smaller marker to its immediate right is that of McParland’s beloved nephew Eneas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the research, writing, and other preparations of this book, I received generous assistance from numerous individuals and organizations. My thanks are first due to my wife, Dr. Elizabeth Cruwys, who served at different times as research assistant, adviser, and copyeditor, as well as providing encouragement, enthusiasm, and critical assessment.
This story would not have been told without the efforts of Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath, George Lucas of InkWell Management, and Maggie Riggs and Joshua Kendall of Penguin Group USA. To each of them I am profoundly grateful. I am also most appreciative of the help of Charles Brotherstone of A.M. Heath and Wendy Wolf of Penguin Group USA.
Several other individuals deserve particular mention for special contributions to this project: Professor David H. Grover; John Horneber, my research assistant in Colorado; Jan Kinzer of the Pennsylvania State Archives; Carolyn Lord; and Sarah Tischer Scully of the Jones Media Center, Dartmouth College Library. I would also like to express my thanks to Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Heather Lane, and Georgina Cronin of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.
For their willingness to share their specialist knowledge and opinions relating to the Molly Maguires, the investigations and trials following the Steunenberg assassination, and other historical material pertinent to McParland’s life, I thank Professor Eugenio Biagini of the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge; Patrick Campbell; Howard Crown; Professor David H. Grover; MaryJoy Martin; Dennis McCann; Martin McParland; Stu Richards; Frank Taaffe; Chris and Annie Wilson; and Dr. Peter Yasenchak of the Schuylkill County Historical Society.
For access to documents and other holdings, I would like to express my appreciation to the staffs of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia; the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University; the British Library; the Cambridge University Library of the University of Cambridge; the Church of St. James Tandragee parish; the Colorado State Archives; the Denver Public Library; the Georgetown University Library; the Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University; the Hagley Museum and Library; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; History Colorado; the Huntington Library; the Idaho State Archives; the Illinois State Archives; the Jones Media Center of the Dartmouth College Library; the Kansas Historical Society; Library and Archives Canada; the Library of Congress; the National Library of Ireland; the Newberry Library of Chicago; the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives; the Pennsylvania State Archives; the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center; the Pottsville Free Public Library; the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; the Robert E. Smylie Archives of the College of Idaho; the Schuylkill County Historical Society; the Scott Polar Research Institute Library; the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries Archives; the University of Minnesota Law Library; the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries; the Western History Collections of the University of Oklahoma; and the Wyoming State Archives, Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
For their individual help with access to holdings, I am very grateful for the kindness of Jan Boles of the College of Idaho; Lynn Catanese and Marge McNinch of the Hagley Museum and Library; Dave Derbes and Dr. Peter Yasenchak of the Schuylkill County Historical Society; Barry Drucker of the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives; Elizabeth Falk, Carolyn Ruby, and John Yandell of the Idaho State Archives; Darrell Garwood of the Kansas Historical Society; Sarah Ash Georgi of the Huntington Library; Carl Hallberg of the Wyoming State Archives; Michael J. Hannon of the University of Minnesota Law Library; Shane Harper of DartDoc at Dartmouth College; David M. Hayes, archivist at the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries; Margaret Hrabe of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia; John C. Johnson of the Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University; the Kaercher descendants; Jan Kinzer of the Pennsylvania State Archives; Carolyn Lord; Jeremy D. Popkin of the University of Kentucky; Sarah Tischer Scully of the Jones Media Center
, Dartmouth College Library; and Steven Smith of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
For help with photographs, I thank George Bacon; Annette Fugita of the Archdiocese of Denver Mortuary; the Kaercher descendants; Carolyn Lord; Martin McParland; and Barbara Natanson of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
I would also like to thank those others who kindly aided my research, including Susan H. Brosnan and Sean Esby of the Knights of Columbus; James Campbell of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; Professor Michael Churgin of the University of Texas School of Law; Elena Cline of the Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration, Colorado State Archives; Carol Ressler Lockman of the Hagley Museum and Library; David W. Mattox of Parsons, Kansas; Consuelo Piñeda of the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives; and Dr. Ralph S. Riffenburgh of the Doheny Eye Institute.
I am grateful to the following for permission to use copyrighted or privately held material: the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, for the correspondence of Robert A. Pinkerton; the American Academy of Political and Social Science, for a quotation from the book Private Police, by Jeremiah P. Shalloo; Tyler Anbinder, for a quotation from his book Five Points; Harold Aurand, for quotations from his book From the Molly Maguires to the United Mine Workers and his article “The Myth of Molly Maguire”; the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley, for the papers of Charles Erskine Scott Wood; Patrick Campbell, for quotations from his book A Molly Maguire Story; Caxton Printers, for quotations from the monograph The Introductory Chapter to the History of the Trials of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, and Harry Orchard, by Fremont Wood; Geoffrey Cowan, for quotations from his book The People v. Clarence Darrow; John A. Farrell, for a quotation from his book Clarence Darrow; David H. Grover, for quotations from his book Debaters and Dynamiters; the Hagley Museum and Library, for the Molly Maguire Papers of the Reading Company Law Department Records; Linda Healey, for quotations from the book Big Trouble, by J. Anthony Lukas; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, for the Molly Maguire Reports, Society Small Collection (0022B); the Idaho State Archives, for the Pinkerton Papers of the James H. Hawley Papers, as well as the James Henry Hawley Papers; Elizabeth Jameson, for quotations from her book All That Glitters; the Kaercher descendants, for the Kaercher MSS; Kevin Kenny, for quotations from his book Making Sense of the Molly Maguires and his article “The Molly Maguires in Popular Culture”; John P. Lavelle, for quotations from his book The Hard Coal Docket; the Library of Congress, for the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency Records and numerous unprocessed visual materials from those holdings; Alan Marshall, for quotations from his book Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685; MaryJoy Martin, for quotations from her book The Corpse on Boomerang Road; Gary T. Marx, for a quotation from his book Undercover: Police Surveillance in America; the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives for the Governor L. Bradford Prince Papers of the Territorial Archives of New Mexico; Richard Patterson, for quotations from his book Butch Cassidy; the Pennsylvania State Archives for the transcripts of the trials of Alexander Campbell, John Donahue, Michael J. Doyle, Thomas P. Fisher and Patrick McKenna, Edward Kelly, and Patrick Hester, Peter McHugh, and Patrick Tully; the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center, for the Molly Maguire Manuscript Collection of the American Catholic Historical Society Manuscript Collections and the Archbishop James Wood Papers; Random House Bertelsmann for quotations from the book Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett; Dan Rockwell, for quotations from the book his father, Wilson Rockwell, edited, Memoirs of a Lawman by Cyrus Wells Shores; Clancy Sigal, for quotations from his book Going Away; the Robert E. Smylie Archives of the College of Idaho for the GL Crookham Jr. Papers; Southern Methodist University Press, for a quotation from the book Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, by J. Frank Dobie; Texas A&M University Press, for quotations from Ben Pingenot’s book Siringo; the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries Archives for Edmund Richardson’s Notes, Affidavits, and Related Material produced for the first trial of Steve Adams and the transcripts for the second trial of Steve Adams and the trial of Bill Haywood; the University of Minnesota Press, for a quotation from the book The Welsh in America, edited by Alan Conway; the University of Oklahoma, for the Frank M. Canton Collection, Western History Collections; Hedy Weinberg, for quotations from the book Attorney for the Damned, edited by Arthur Weinberg; Robert P. Weiss, for a quotation from his article “Private Detective Agencies and Labour Discipline in the United States”; and the Wyoming State Archives, Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources, for the correspondence and papers of Sheriff Frank A. Hadsell. If I have overlooked anybody, or failed to trace the correct copyright holders, I hope they will forgive me. Acknowledgment of help does not imply endorsement of the views or interpretations expressed in this book about a most controversial figure.
As always, I would like to express my gratitude and love to my parents, Ralph and Angelyn Riffenburgh, for their ongoing patience, encouragement, and support. And I am grateful for the day-to-day cheer given by Ma, Gertrude, and Ethel while I was writing the manuscript.
INDEX
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.
Adams, Alva, 220, 254
Adams, Annie, 305, 313, 319, 331, 345, n70, n77
Adams, Steve, 291, 303, 309, 314, 321, 328, 355, n76
arrests of, 277–78, 281, 285, 305–6, 346
attempts to return to prosecution, 305–6, 308, 316, 319–20, n77
and Barney’s body, 296–99, 340, 352
confession, 285–89, 295–96, 303–4, 313–16, 339–44, 350–52, 365, n70, n75–77
and Darrow, 304, 305–6, 342
description, 285
first trial, 311, 312–16, 344, n75, n84
incarceration, 285–88, 304–6, 308, 316, 340
interactions with JM, 287–88, 295–97, 299, 306, 308, 342–44, 350–51, 365, n70
and Lillard, 304, 307
and murder of Boule, 305, 316, 344, 350
and murder of Collins, 272, 286, 288, 350, n68
and murder of Tyler, 305, 308, 311–12, 316, 340, 344–46
as Orchard’s accomplice, 272, 286–88, 326
recantation, 304–5, 338, 353
search for, 276, 278, 281
and search for “Pettibone dope,” 294–95
second trial, 339, 340, 341–46, n75
taken to Wallace, 305–7
third trial, 350–53
Albright, Charles, 34, 112, 114, 115, 116, 122, 130, 139, 148, 154
American Smelting and Refining Co., 250, 254
Ancient Order of Hibernians, 30, 54, 58, 59, 67–70, 77, 80, 85–89, 92, 93, 100, 101, 105–6, 114, 119–20, 131, 133–36, 142, 143, 153, n36, n41
background of, 48
Catholic Church on, 68–69, 73, 148
Gowen linking to Molly Maguires, 83–84, 124–26, 129, 139–41, 152, n26–27, n37
JM’s knowledge of, 48–49, 55, 57, 63–65, 149, 156–58, 269, 358, n83–84
national conference of, 148–49
organization of, 55, 65, 125, 141, 154, 269
purpose of, 55, 115, 121–22, n16
relation to Molly Maguires, xi, 48–49, 53, 72–73, 83, 111, 121–22, 126, 139, 154–55, 197, 358, n37, n83–84
anthracite, 31, 61, 62
Anthracite Board of Trade, 40, 41, 71
anthracite industry, 32, 36–37, n19, n41
economics of, 32, 39–41, 44
Gowen’s goals for, 24–25, 39, 42–44, 83, 152
Anthracite Monitor, The, 38–39, 45
anthracite region, 5, 39, 49, 55, 66, 67, 110, 111, 118, 120, 125, 147, 149, 1
61, 197, 284, 363, n22, n35, n36, n41, n84
economics and history of, 30, 32–34, 35, 74
outrages in, 26, 30, 32–36, 40, 45, 71, 128
physical geography of, 31–32
Appeal to Reason, 292–93, n71, n76–78, n80
campaign against JM, 174–75, 292–93, 294, 300–1, 359, n77
Bangs, George D., 214, 231, 244, 256, 302, 310, 312, 347, 348, 358, 360, 361, n11, n25
Bangs, George H., 19–22, 25, 50, 103, 111, 167, 169, 171, n53
Bannan, Benjamin, 30, 34, 35, 43, 53, 69, 150
Barnaby, Josephine, 199–202
Barney, William, 296–99, 340, 350, 352, n70, n72, n82
Barrymore, Ethel, 329
Bartholomew, Lin, 6, 113, 114, 115, 124, 136
questioning JM, 126, 158, 159, n37
Beaubien, W. S., and Company, 15, 16, n13, n45
Bell, Sherman, 251–52, 253, 326
Billy the Kid (Henry McCarty, aka William Bonney), 165, 179–80, 182
blacklegs, 73, 78
Borah, William E., 289, 300, 303, 339, 353
closing in Haywood trial, 336
as deputy prosecutor, 289–90, 298, 305–6, 309, 323, 328, 346
elected U.S. senator, 311, n75
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