Part 36
The details of this revolting crime and the apprehension of the Mollie Maguires are of interest as they reveal the terrible horrors experienced in the anthracite coal fields during the reign of this lawless organization.
James McParlan, the Pinkerton detective, who joined the Mollies under the alias of James McKenna, and successfully brought their leaders to the gallows, was working on the Gomer James murder outrage, when he learned that the next victim was to be an excellent and competent policeman of Tamaqua, of the name of Benjamin F. Yost.
McParlan had been unable to learn sufficient of their designs to get a warning to Yost, as he had so frequently done in other cases.
Yost had experienced considerable trouble with the Mollies, especially as he had several times arrested James Kerrigan, their local leader, for drunkenness. Barney McCarron, the other member of the Tamaqua police force, had also come in for his share of their ill-will, but, from his German parentage, Yost was the more intensely hated. Yost had been threatened several times but was a fearless man, a veteran of the Civil War, where he displayed conspicuous valor on many battlefields, and a policeman who served his community with fidelity.
About midnight of July 5, 1875, the two policemen in passing Carroll’s saloon, noted that the place was still open, went inside and saw Kerrigan and another man drinking.
The policemen proceeded with their duties, and extinguished the street lamps on their route. They arrived at Yost’s residence about two o’clock and partook of a lunch, preparatory to finishing up the night’s work.
The two officers parted at Yost’s front gate, and Mrs. Yost, looking out of her bedroom window, saw her husband place a small ladder against a lamp post a short distance from their home, and step upon the rungs, but he never reached the light.
The woman saw two flashes from a pistol; heard the two loud reports and saw her husband fall from the ladder. She ran down the stairs and into the street, and met the wounded man, staggering and weak with loss of blood, clinging to the fence, looking toward his once happy home.
Yost lived long enough to say that his murderers were two Irishmen who had been in Carroll’s saloon that evening. He exonerated Kerrigan of the crime, saying one was larger and the other smaller than he. He did not see Kerrigan.
Yost died at nine o’clock that morning; he was then thirty-three years of age.
McParlan was soon on the trail of the Mollies who committed this cruel murder, and Captain Linden, another Pinkerton operative, was also active on the case.
McParlan was at this time under suspicion by the Mollies of being a detective and his work was the most dangerous any man was ever called upon to perform, but he was a hero.
He now affected the role of a drunken man and while sleeping off his debauch listened to a conversation which gave him a clue; he then fell in with Carroll, engaged his wife in conversation and soon learned much of importance.
The next day he learned the names of two of the men who had killed Yost, Hugh McGehan and James Boyle, both of Summit Hill.
The following day he went to Coaldale and visited James Roarty, head of the Mollie branch there, ostensibly to see another person. Here they had a drinking bout, and Roarty told too much, and he was Mollie number three.
Two days later McParlan was back in Tamaqua and lounging about Carroll’s saloon where he got more information from Roarty and Carroll. He then learned that Thomas Duffy was an actor in the crime.
Sunday, July 26, McParlan and Carroll spent some time together, when the latter related the conversation he had had with some detectives (which McParlan had sent there), and boasted about loaning his pistol to the man who did the job. This made Carroll number four.
Soon afterwards Duffy bragged to McParlan of the part he had taken and the fifth Mollie was trapped.
All that was then needed was to gather his evidence so that it could be used against these criminals, and for this purpose Captain Linden was most valuable.
Kerrigan took McParlan to the scene of the murder and enacted the crime for his friend’s benefit, and soon after this incident the detective learned that McGehan fired the two shots which killed Yost.
This is the same James Kerrigan who turned State’s evidence in the great trial of Mollies at Mauch Chunk, January 18, 1876, which resulted in the conviction of Kerrigan, Michael J. Doyle, and Edward Kelly for the murder of John P. Jones. Kerrigan’s evidence was the most stunning blow the Mollies had thus far received, but they knew not the heavier blows which were to fall on their villainous heads.
The great trial of Thomas Munley and Charles McAllister for the murder of Thomas Sanger and William Uren, which was held at Pottsville, June, 1876, brought the great Franklin B. Gowen into the case, and the testimony of McParlan, the Pinkerton detective. Conviction followed.
Then May 4, when the five Mollies were placed on trial at Pottsville for the murder of Yost. Judges C. L. Pershing, D. B. Green and T. H. Walker presided.
A juror was taken sick and died, and the second trial was begun July 6, each of the Mollies was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and each was hanged in the Pottsville jail yard, the warrants being signed by Governor Hartranft, May 21, 1877, the executions being held June 21, the day eight Mollies expiated their crimes.
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French and Indian Wars—Lieutenant Governor Thomas Resigned May 5, 1747
Coincident with the announcement in the Assembly of the death of John Penn, one of the Proprietors, was the resignation of Lieutenant Governor Sir George Thomas, May 5, 1747, on account of ill-health.
On the departure of Governor Thomas, the executive functions again devolved on the Provincial Council, of which Anthony Palmer was president; he served until the arrival of James Hamilton, son of Andrew Hamilton, former Speaker of the Assembly, as Lieutenant Governor, November 23, 1749.
The harvests of the years 1750 to 1752 were so abundant that an extract of the time is interesting: “The years 1751 and 1752 have been so fruitful in wheat and other grain that men in wanton carelessness sought to waste the supply: for the precious wheat which might have supported many poor, they used to fatten hogs, which afterward they consumed in their sumptuousness. Besides, distilleries were erected everywhere, and thus this great blessing was turned into strong drink, which gave rise to much disorder.
These years of plenty were followed by three years of scarcity, 1753–1755, and on the heels of it came the terrible Indian hostilities.
The progress of the white population toward the West alarmed and irritated the Indians. The new settlers did not suffer the delays of the land office, nor did they pay for their lands, but in search for richer soils sought homes in regions where the Indian title had not been extinguished. Some of these settlements were commenced prior to 1740, and rapidly increased, despite the complaints of the Indians, the laws of the Province or the several proclamations of the Governor.
An alarming crisis was now at hand. The French in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes were sedulously applying themselves to seduce the Indians from their allegiance to the English. The Shawnee had already joined the French cause; the Delaware only waited for an opportunity to avenge their wrongs; and of the Six Nations, the Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca were wavering and listening to overtures from the agents of both the English and French.
To keep the Indians in favor of the province required much cunning diplomacy and many expensive presents. In the midst of this alarming condition the old flame of civil dissension burst out with increased fury. The presents so frequently procured for the Indians, the erection of a chain of forts along the frontier and the maintenance of a military force drew too heavily upon the provincial purse, which never was burdened with any great surplus.
The Assembly urged that the Proprietary estates be taxed, as well as those of humble individuals. The Proprietaries, as would be expected, refused to be taxed and pleaded prerogative, charter and law; the Assembly in turn pleaded equity, common danger, common benefit and at common expense.
The Proprietaries offered bounties in lands not yet acquired from the Indians by treaty or purchase, and in addition proposed the issuing of more paper money. The Assembly was not satisfied; they wanted something more tangible. They passed laws laying taxes and granting supplies, but the Proprietaries opposed the conditions. They were willing to aid the Assembly in taxing the people, but not the Proprietaries. Here were sown the germs of the Revolution, though not fully matured until twenty years later.
During those frivolous disputes in the Assembly the frontiers were left fully exposed. The pacific principles, too, of the Quakers, Dunkards, Mennonites and Schwenckfelders came in to complicate the strife, but as the danger increased they prudently kept aloof from public office, leaving the management of the war to sects less scrupulous. The pulpit and the press were deeply involved, and the inhabitants divided into opposing factions upon this question.
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was scarcely regarded more seriously than a truce by the French in America. In their eagerness to extend their territories and connect their northern possessions with Louisiana, they projected a line of forts and military posts from one to the other along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. They explored and occupied the land upon the latter stream, buried in many places leaden plates, by which they claimed possession of those lands.
The French established themselves at Presqu’ Isle and extended themselves southward; they erected a fort at Au Boeuf and another at the mouth of French Creek, which they called Fort Machault.
Virginia was much interested in this foothold gained by the French along the Ohio, for they claimed the territory of Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny Mountains as part of their dominion.
The English Government having learned that the French claimed right to the Ohio River country by virtue of the discovery of La Salle, made sixty years previous, remonstrated with the Court of Versailles, but without avail, and resolved to oppose force with force.
The first move made by the English was to present a solid front by combining the efforts of all the colonies. To this end a conference was called at Albany in July, 1754, to which the Six Nations were invited. Governor Hamilton could not attend this conference, and John Penn and Richard Peters, of the Council, and Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin, of the Assembly, were commissioned to represent the Province of Pennsylvania. They carried with them £500 as the provincial present to the Indians.
The results of this confederated council were not satisfactory, but the Pennsylvania Commissioners obtained a great part of the land in the province, to which the Indian title was not extinct, comprising the lands lying southwest of a line beginning one mile above the mouth of Penns Creek, in what is now Snyder County, and running northwest by west “to the western boundary of the State.”
The Shawnee, Delaware and Munsee Indians, on the Susquehanna, Juniata, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, thus found their lands “sold from under their feet,” which the Six Nations had guaranteed to them on their removal from the Eastern waters. This proved of great dissatisfaction to these Indians and had not a little part in causing their alienation from the English interest.
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Work Begun on Building Braddock Road
Over Alleghenies May 6, 1755
Preparatory to the ill-fated expedition of General Braddock, which precipitated the forays of the French and Indians upon the unprotected frontiers of Pennsylvania, was the letter to Governor Morris, of Pennsylvania, asking to have a road cut so that there might be communication between Philadelphia and the Three Forks of the Youghiogheny, both for the security of retreat and to facilitate the transport of provisions. These English officers were unacquainted with American geography, and at best the maps used by them were by no means accurate.
Governor Morris in response advised Sir John St. Clair, deputy quartermaster general, that there was a very good wagon road from Philadelphia to the mouth of the Conococheague, but only a horse path through the mountains by which the Indian traders carried their goods, and that there would be great difficulty in making a wagon road that way. He also gently intimated that the distance was much greater than the English officers realized.
Governor Morris, with the sanction of the Assembly, sent George Croghan, John Armstrong, James Burd, William Buchanan and Adam Hoopes as commissioners to explore the country west of the “Great Virginia Road,” as the road through the Cumberland Valley was called, and to survey and lay out such roads as were most direct and commodious. No better men could have been chosen. They were acquainted with the country, and Armstrong was the best surveyor on the frontier.
These commissioners projected a road from McDowell’s Mill, in present Franklin County, to within eighteen miles of the Three Forks, where they found too many French and Indians scouting and hunting to venture farther. The length of projected road so far as it was surveyed was sixty-nine miles.
The commissioners could not effect a meeting with Sir John until April 16. When they showed him the drafts he raved like a wild man, and the commissioners, believing they had done their part well, were abashed by their unusual reception.
Sir John told them it was too late to build this road now, and instead of marching to the Ohio they would march into Cumberland County. Not a soldier should handle an ax, but by fire and sword General Braddock would compel the inhabitants to build it. He would kill all the cattle and drive away the horses, burn the houses, and if the French defeated the army by the delays of the Province, he would, with his sword drawn, pass through it and treat the inhabitants as a parcel of traitors to his master. He even avowed his purpose to “shake Mr. Penn’s Proprietaryship” by representing Pennsylvania as a disaffected province.
Braddock was constantly complaining of the failure of Pennsylvania and Virginia. He spoke slightingly of the provincial contingent and scoffed at danger from the Indians. “These savages,” he said to Franklin, “may indeed be a formidable enemy to raw American militia, but upon the King’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make an impression.”
Governor Morris early in May sent Secretary Peters to expedite the work of the road-makers by his presence. Neither General Braddock nor Sir John had any distinct idea of the obstacles to road-building over the Pennsylvania mountains or of the difficulties which confronted Governor Morris in a work of such magnitude, who lacked both money and men for the undertaking.
This road, which afterward received the name of Braddock’s Road, passed beyond McDowell’s Mill, around Parnell’s and Jordan’s Knobs into Path Valley, into Cowan’s Gap, past Burnt Cabins and Sugar Cabins to Sideling Hill. From the latter point the road extended to the crossing of the Juniata, thence to Raystown (now Bedford), and it then went over the Alleghenies to the Great Crossing, three miles from Turkey’s Foot.
The entire expense of making the road was to be paid by the Province. Advertisements were broadcasted in Cumberland, York and Lancaster Counties for laborers. James Wright and John Smith contracted to supply the workmen with provisions.
Ground was broken May 6, 1755, when only ten men reported for work under command of James Burd. By the 15th there were seventy men at work and by the end of the month 120.
Mr. Burd was in sole charge of the work at the outset, the other commissioners being too busy—Croghan with the Indian contingent ordered by Braddock, Armstrong with complications growing out of the purchase of 1754 and Buchanan and Hoopes with their private affairs.
The road was built thirty feet wide for about ten miles, when it was determined to make it twenty feet, and parts requiring digging or quarrying only ten feet.
Twenty days were required to make the road from Anthony Thompson’s to Sideling Hill, a distance of nineteen miles. William Smith was commissioned to assist Mr. Burd and reported May 28.
Much of the money required for the work was supplied by Joseph Armstrong and Samuel Smith, members of the Assembly from Cumberland County, from their private purse, for the Legislature held its pursestrings with a tight grip. The workmen at times suffered for the want of bread and liquor.
By June 16, Mr. Burd wrote from “Alloqueepy’s Town,” thirty-four and a half miles from Thompson’s, that he expected to finish the work there the next day, and join the advance division, under Smith, at Raystown.
The Indians menaced the work at this time and Braddock, who at first refused aid, sent 100 men, under Captain Hogg, as a guard. The soldiers came none too soon.
As Braddock penetrated the Alleghenies, Indian ravages began in his rear. True to their character, the savages spared neither sex nor age. The soldiers deserted and the workmen were unprotected and in constant danger.
By July 5 the road was completed to the eastern base of the Alleghenies.
On the day that Braddock’s body was buried at Great Meadows, John Armstrong wrote to him from Carlisle to say that the new road would soon be completed. It was too late. Braddock had no further need for a road, except a spot for a burial place in that great highway over which he had marched to defeat with so much military pomp.
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George Croghan, King of Traders, Sent on
Mission to Logstown May 7, 1751
George Croghan and Andrew Montour were sent, May 7, 1751, to Logstown to carry a Provincial present to the Indians. While there the wily Irishman met Joncaire, the French Indian agent, but succeeded in outwitting him in diplomacy; and the chiefs ordered the French from their lands and reasserted their friendship for the English. At this time the Indians requested Croghan to ask Governor Hamilton to build a strong house on the Ohio River for the protection of their wives and children in event they should be obliged to engage in war.
George Croghan, next to Sir William Johnson, was the most prominent figure among British-Indian agents during the period of the later French wars and the conspiracy of Pontiac, from 1746 until the Revolutionary War, when he unfortunately cast his lot with the British.
He was born in Ireland and educated at Dublin, and emigrated to America in 1741. He settled in Pennsylvania near John Harris’ Ferry, now Harrisburg. He became an Indian trader in 1744, and was made a Councilor of the Six Nations at Onondaga in 1746.
Croghan first appears in the official correspondence of Pennsylvania as writing to Secretary Richard Peters, May 26, 1747, that he had just returned from the woods, bringing a letter, a French scalp, and some wampum, for the Governor from a party of the Six Nations Indians having their dwelling on the borders of Lake Erie, who had formerly been in the French interest; and who now, thanks to Croghan’s diplomacy, had declared against the French.
Croghan went to Logstown in April, 1748, with a message and present from Pennsylvania Council to the Ohio Indians. Conrad Weiser carried a larger present to these same Indians, and on his trip lodged in Croghan’s storehouse in Logstown.
In 1750, Croghan accompanied Secretary Peters and other officials on a trip among the settlers in Path, Tuscarora, Juniata and Aughwick Valleys warning them off, burning their cabins and confining some of the intruders in prison.
At the great Shawnee Council at Logstown, he, Andrew Montour and Christopher Gist were present and Croghan boldly announced to the Indians that the French had offered a large sum of money to any one who would bring them the bodies or scalps of Croghan or Montour. So the mission to Logstown, May 7, 1751, when the French-Indian Agent was present, was a most unusual moment to the intrepid Croghan, and his almost equally celebrated companion, Andrew Montour.
Croghan succeeded in making a treaty between the Indians and Virginia Commissioners. He was again at Logstown, May 7, 1753, in company with William Trent, Robert Callender and other traders, when a messenger arrived with the news that the French were on Lake Erie in large force, with brass cannon, on their way to the Ohio. Croghan held a conference with Scarouady, the Half King, on May 12; and then attended an important council between Pennsylvania Commissioners and chiefs of the Six Nations, Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot and Twightwee at Carlisle in October, 1753. About this time he was compelled, by impending bankruptcy and fear of being imprisoned for debt, to remove to the Indian country, and he built a house at Aughwick Old Town, near the Juniata.
Croghan accompanied George Washington and his little army on the march from Fort Necessity to Redstone. When he returned to Aughwick he kept Governor Morris informed of the movements of the French and their Indian allies.
Croghan attended the important Indian conferences at Easton, Harris’ Ferry, Lancaster, Onondaga, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other places, and always faithfully represented the English cause. He and Weiser were the most active agents at Easton, June, 1762, when King Tedyuskung retracted his charges of fraud and forgery in land transactions made against the Proprietaries by him at Easton six years before.
He was commissioned captain and served with Braddock, when he commanded a company of Indians. He resigned his commission in spring of 1756 and joined his fortunes with those of Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk Valley. He was appointed a deputy in the Indian service, with the rank of colonel.
December 1, 1763, he sailed for England to confer with the ministry about some boundary lines, but he was shipwrecked off the coast of France and did not reach his destination until February, 1764.
Croghan made an affidavit while in London which relates much of his early movements. He also presented to the Lords of Trade an interesting Memorial on Indian Affairs in America.
He returned to Pennsylvania in October, 1764, and was induced to continue as Deputy Indian Agent in the Western Department.
Croghan was sent by General Gage to Illinois for the purpose of making peace with the Indians. He embarked from Fort Pitt, May 15, 1765, and experienced a hazardous trip during which his party was attacked by hostile Indians. He being severely wounded and taken prisoner, was carried to what is now Lafayette, Indiana, where he was recognized by some chiefs with whom he had previous dealings, and in spite of the fact that the French demanded his execution, Croghan was liberated, July 18. He set off that day for the Illinois country. On the way he met Pontiac and other chiefs, and effected the treaty he had been sent to make.
Colonel Croghan kept journals of all his trips and these are both interesting and valuable. They reveal many exciting adventures and some very harrowing experiences.
Croghan mortgaged his Otsego tract of land to William Franklin, son of Benjamin, and lost it under foreclosure in 1773. This became the home of James Fennimore Cooper, now Cooperstown, N. Y.
In the controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia for the territory which lies west of the Laurel Hills, Croghan was a partisan of Virginia, and one of those who stirred up the most trouble.