Molly Maguire Executions at Jim Thorpe

On June twenty-first, eighteen seventy-seven, four men were hanged at the Carbon County Jail here in what is now Jim Thorpe. Six more were executed the same day in Pottsville, and ten additional men were put to death across Pennsylvania through eighteen seventy-nine. They were convicted as members of the Molly Maguires, an alleged secret society of Irish coal miners accused of violent crimes against mine owners and foremen.

Their convictions rested largely on the testimony of a Pinkerton detective named James McParlan, who had infiltrated mining communities. Whether the Molly Maguires existed as a formal organization, and whether the convicted men were guilty, has been disputed ever since. What is certain is that these executions took place at a moment of profound conflict over wages, class, and ethnic identity in the Pennsylvania coalfields.