The Handprint
There is little doubt that life in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland was hard. The potato famine that ravaged the land forced many starving men, women and children to seek greener pastures beyond the Emerald Isle. A large portion of these refugees sailed across the Atlantic in search of a better life in the New World. For Conan McGreevy, however, America was not the land of opportunity he had hoped it would be. Far from its streets being paved with gold, the United States was in the grip of a bloody civil war. Within hours of stepping off the boat in Boston, he enlisted in the Grand Army of the Republic and was sent south to fight the Confederates.
Conan fought bravely in the War Between the States, not because of any commitment he felt toward the preservation of the Union or the abolition of slavery but because he was concerned with the safeguarding of his own existence. Serving in the Army, although it meant risking his life, guaranteed a meal on a fairly regular basis. The constant threat of death on some Southern battlefield didn't frighten the young Irishman; being shot seemed a much quicker and more humane death than slowly wasting away from starvation in Ireland.
During the battle of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union Private McGreevy distinguished himself and earned a medal for bravery by saving the life of Barton Pembroke, a young officer from Pennsylvania. Several men, including Conan and Barton, had taken a position along a high cliff when a shot from enemy cannon caused a rock slide. Barton lost his footing and started to slide down a steep embankment. The frightened soldier grabbed the exposed root of an old tree and held on for dear life, but his strength began to wane. Suddenly, he heard a voice from above.
"Take my hand," Conan cried in his lilting Irish brogue. "I'll pull you up."
Pembroke was hesitant at first. What if the private could not get a good hold of him? What if the stranger lost his own footing? They might both fall to their deaths. However, the pain in Barton's strained muscles became excruciating. He could not hold on much longer. Praying for mercy from above, the young officer let go of the root. After several terrifying moments, Conan lifted him over the edge of the cliff to safety.
"You saved my life! I don't know how to thank you," Barton cried once he felt the terra firma beneath his feet.
"You can thank me by not getting yourself shot. I'd hate to have risked my own arse saving yours if you're only going to die anyway."
"I'll try to oblige you," Barton chuckled.
Although the two soldiers had vastly different backgrounds—Conan, a penniless Irish farmer, and Barton, the product of a wealthy Pennsylvania family—a bond of brotherhood joined them that day. The finer distinctions—nationality, religion, wealth, education and social class—mattered little in the heat of battle. Barton's life had been in danger. What did it matter to him if the hand that had reached out to save him was that of a poor, uneducated Irish Catholic immigrant?
* * *
Before the Civil War came to an end, the two young men were reunited in Union-occupied Richmond, Virginia.
"The South can't hold out much longer," Barton predicted with grim satisfaction.
"I suppose not," Conan agreed.
While the impoverished immigrant welcomed peace after three years of fighting, the end of the war would also bring with it uncertainty. Would he be able to find work, or had he left the famine of Ireland only to starve to death on the streets of Boston or New York?
As though the officer had read the private's mind, Pembroke asked, "Where will you go after the armistice?"
"Wherever I can find work. One of the big cities, most likely."
"There might not be much of a job market in the East. You'll have to compete with the other men returning from war and with the freed slaves who went north, not to mention the boatloads of immigrants that keep arriving."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"You can always stay in the Army. I have no doubt once things are finished here in the South, Washington will turn its attention to the Indians out West."
"Why? What have they done?"
"They're in the way," Barton laughed. "America is rapidly growing. I foresee a time when this great nation will stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It's our destiny."
"But the western territories belong to the Indians," Conan argued.
"So did this land we're standing on at one time. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, Richmond—they were all built on land once owned by indigenous people. Look what we've done with it, though. America is the cradle of liberty, a beacon of hope and freedom that shines throughout the world."
"Funny, but I don't see that beacon shining on the Indians."
Barton didn't reply. Like most of his countrymen, he worshipped freedom as an ideal. Conan found it ironic that the officer had been willing to die to provide freedom to Southern slaves one day and then deny it to the Native Americans the next.
"Of course, if you don't want to stay in the Army, you can always find work in Pennsylvania."
"What kind of work?"
"There is a great deal of opportunity for hard-working men in the coal mines of Schuylkill, Carbon, Luzerne and Lackawanna counties."
"I've no experience. I come from a family of farmers, not miners. Do you think I could get a job in the mines?"
"I'm sure of it. Go to a town called Mauch Chunk on the bank of the Lehigh River and ask to speak to Mr. Purvis. Tell him I sent you, and he'll see to it you get a job."
* * *
Barton Pembroke had been right. Although production was down and there were many other unemployed men anxious to find work, when Conan told the mine superintendent that he had served in the Army with Barton, he was immediately given a job.
At first, Conan believed he had found the good life at last. Although he had to toil in the bowels of the earth, at least the small Pennsylvania town had no shortage of food. For the first time since he was a boy, the young Irishman could sleep peacefully at night, no longer fearful that his next day on earth might be his last.
However, not long after he entered the mines, Conan realized that underneath the black coal dust, the roads of Mauch Chunk were indeed paved with gold: gold that went directly into the pockets of the owners of the mining companies. Of the great wealth ripped out of the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, very little of it trickled down to the men who risked their lives to mine it. Having grown up in Ireland on a farm owned by an absentee English landlord, Conan was used to seeing the fruits of his labors harvested by someone else. For him, life in America, for all its talk of freedom and democracy, was not much different than it had been in Europe. It was a life of hard labor and poverty.
Still, he was able to find some happiness in Pennsylvania. Within a month of arriving in Mauch Chunk, the handsome young Irishman met a pretty girl, the daughter of a fellow miner. A year after they first met, the two married and moved into a small house owned by the mining company.
It was not until one of the shafts caved in, killing thirteen miners, that Conan McGreevy began to reconsider his options.
"It's too dangerous down there," he told his wife. "I'm a married man with a child on the way. I have to think of my family's wellbeing. In this great land of yours, there must be a better, safer way for a man to earn a living."
Nell McGreevy agreed. Furthermore, both she and Conan believed that education was the surest way out of poverty. So late at night when her husband came home from the mines, she taught him to read and write. His instruction was interrupted only when Nell gave birth to their son, and it resumed shortly thereafter. The young mother often sat by candlelight teaching her husband his letters while nursing her tiny infant.
Conan, although exhausted from his long hours of back-breaking labor, cherished those quiet, intimate moments each night with his wife and son. He loved his family dearly and swore to himself that one day he would be better able to provide for them. He vowed he would never see his child sent to work in the breaker and die before his time, a victim of the coal dust in his lungs.
* * *
Most coal miners felt the same as Conan did. Over the years, there had been several attempts at unionization, but the owners of the mines always managed to crush any threat of organized labor. Yet when the price of coal began to drop and the miners' pay was cut, talk of a possible strike began to spread through the town.
"How can we live on what we make now?" cried Chauncey Harrigan, a man long in favor of forming a union. "Why, Tommy Ryan, after spending six long days breaking his back down there in the mine, made less than twenty dollars. And after the superintendent deducted the cost of oil, a new pick, food, rent on his house, and God knows what else, Tommy was left with little more than a dollar. And that was paid in scrip, which is useless outside of the company store where everything is overpriced."
Conan nodded in agreement.
"The owners got us where they want us, no doubt about it," he said.
"But without us to go down into the shafts and bring up the coal, where would they be? You certainly won't see any of them coming out of their fine houses on Millionaire's Row to risk their lives mining for black diamonds. All they're good for is taking the money we earn from our labors. Our blood, sweat and tears go into every ton of anthracite that comes out of the ground."
"That's true, but there's nothing we can do to change the situation. If we complain, the bosses will only give us the sack and hire others to take our place."
"Not if the men stick together," Chauncey stubbornly insisted. "I say let's have a meeting and present our demands to the owners. If they don't agree to them, then we must strike. We stand together and form a picket line to prevent anyone else from going into the mine shaft."
When the owners heard rumors of a proposed plan to form a union, they were quick to act. They hired a private police force to keep the miners in line. These men, predominantly Welsh and English who thought the Irish were beneath them, had little sympathy for the plight of the laborers. Suspected union organizers were beaten, their families terrorized and their property damaged.
The strong-arm tactics worked; most of the miners were cowed in the face of violence. They would not risk their lives or the lives of their families over a pay cut no matter how hard that loss in wages would hit them. But there were some fearless men, Chauncey Harrigan and Conan McGreevy among them, who were not willing to kowtow to the owners.
"They want to play rough, do they?" Chauncey asked after one of his fellow laborers had his arm broken and three ribs cracked by the police. "Well, two can play at that game!"
* * *
The old adage "violence begets violence" all too often proves to be true. To retaliate against the attacks by the owners' private police force, a handful of miners formed a secret group of their own aimed at striking fear in the hearts of the mine owners and their superintendents. The men in this group, primarily of Irish extraction, were to become known as the Molly Maguires. Despite the pressure put on the mine workers, none would reveal the identity of these men. Even those miners who didn't approve of the Molly Maguires' illegal activities refused to betray fellow Irishmen to the authorities.
It was while relations between management and labor were at their worst that Barton Pembroke returned to Mauch Chunk. Conan was delighted to see his old Army friend.
"Didn't I tell you there would be opportunities here for someone like you?" the former Union officer reminded the man who once saved his life. "This section of Pennsylvania has the largest deposit of anthracite in the Western Hemisphere."
While Conan was anxious to renew his friendship with Barton, he was not about to discuss his job. After all, he didn't want to appear ungrateful.
"So, what are you doing in Pennsylvania?" Conan asked.
"I got a job here. I'm going to work in the office as a bookkeeper."
Conan's eyebrows rose.
"No kidding? A bookkeeper?"
"What can I say? It helps to have friends," Barton admitted sheepishly.
Conan didn't resent the fact that his friend would work under much better conditions or that Barton would be better paid. He did not see the new bookkeeper as an adversary even though most of the Molly Maguires distrusted anyone at the mines whose face was not blackened with coal dust.
In the weeks that followed, Barton was a frequent visitor to the small, company-owned house in which Conan and his family lived. Still a bachelor, he enjoyed Nell McGreevy's home-cooked meals, and he often showed up at the house bearing fresh cuts of meat and poultry, which the hostess gratefully accepted.
"You don't have to bring food with you every time you come to our house," Conan protested. "We're not that badly off that we can't offer a friend a place at our table."
"I know that," Barton replied. "I didn't mean to offend you. Look, as a bookkeeper, I know how much the miners are paid and how much the company charges for goods at the company store. You have to support three people on that income. I, on the other hand, am single, so I can better afford to spring for the price of a leg of lamb or a turkey."
Nell thanked her generous guest with another helping of roast beef and potatoes.
"Honestly," Barton continued, "I don't know how any of the men can live on what the company pays them."
"Ain't that the truth? I tell you, the workers here are no better than slaves."
"Slaves?" Barton laughed. "Isn't that exaggerating just a little?"
"No, it isn't. Sometimes I think it would take another civil war to make the owners treat us like men."
"You sound like one of the Molly Maguires I've been hearing about."
Conan immediately regretted his words. Loose lips had sent more than one man to his grave. Nell, ever fearful for her husband's safety, quickly changed the subject.
The topic of the secret organization did not come up again for several weeks. When it did, Barton pressed his friend for more information.
"What's your interest in the Molly Maguires?" Conan asked warily.
"Do you think I'm blind to the poor conditions in the mines just because I sit behind a desk all day? I tell you it makes me sick to see how the owners treat the men!"
Barton's words were spoken with such passion and conviction that Conan regretted his suspicion.
"I fought to stop oppression in the South," the former Union officer continued. "How can I now stand by and turn a blind eye to what is going on right here in Pennsylvania?"
"What is it you want, exactly?"
"To join the Molly Maguires."
"I don't know. They're a clannish lot," Conan admitted hesitantly. "You not being Irish—well, they might not trust you."
"I can understand why. The Irish are not exactly being welcomed to America with open arms. We who were born in this country often see you immigrants as a threat to our own futures. After all, you people are willing to work for far less than we are. However, the battle here in Mauch Chunk is not so much one of nationality as it is one of privilege: the wealthy are exploiting the poor. Only by sticking together, regardless of who we are or where we came from, can we force the owners to improve working conditions and raise wages."
"I never took you for a union man. Maybe you can help our cause, at that. I'm going to meet with some of the other miners tonight," Conan confessed. "I'll tell them about your desire to join us and see what they say, but I can't make any promises."
* * *
Solely on Conan McGreevy's recommendation, Barton Pembroke was accepted into the secret society on a probationary basis. If he proved his loyalty, he would become a full-fledged member.
"What is it I'm to do?" Barton asked one night when he, Conan, Chauncey Harrigan, and two other men secretly met near the entrance to an abandoned mine shaft.
"We're going to break into the superintendent's office," Chauncey explained. "One inside, we'll set dynamite charges and blow up the company's records."
The Molly Maguires arrived at the office under cover of darkness, unaware that the company had been alerted to expect trouble that night. No sooner did the men enter the office than the superintendent stepped out of the darkness and confronted them.
"Caught you in the act," he cried triumphantly. "You'll go to jail for sure, you pack of rabble-rousing, papist potato peelers!"
When the miners tried to escape capture, they were confronted by members of the company's private police force, and during the ensuing fight, the mine superintendent was shot and killed.
* * *
Word of the arrests spread through Mauch Chunk. The miners were disheartened by the news. Many of them questioned the circumstances surrounding the alleged murder. What was the superintendent doing in the office at that hour, alone and in the dark? Was it merely a coincidence that the police were in the vicinity at the time? There was only one conclusion that could be drawn: Chauncey Harrigan and his men had been set up. But by whom?
When the Molly Maguires were brought to trial, one of the men involved in the incident was noticeably missing.
"What happened to Pembroke?" Conan asked the lawyer who had been assigned to represent him.
The lawyer shrugged.
When Barton did appear in court several days later, it was not as a defendant but as the star witness for the prosecution. The miners were shocked to learn that the bookkeeper was none other than the nephew of one of the men who owned the mining company. The former Union officer had agreed to work undercover as a spy for his uncle. During his months in Mauch Chunk, he managed to amass a good deal of information on the Molly Maguires, and even though Conan McGreevy had saved his life during the war, Barton told the members of the court of his friend's connection to the secret organization.
Given the overwhelming evidence, the four defendants were found guilty and sentenced to hang. In June 1877 a scaffold was constructed outside the Carbon County Jail, and on the morning of the execution, two guards and a Catholic priest entered cell number seventeen.
Conan's manner was surprisingly serene.
"Hello, father."
"I've come to hear your final confession," Father Timothy announced sadly.
"While you're confessing your sins, don't forget to tell God you're guilty of taking the superintendent's life," one of the guards goaded.
"You're mistaken. I'm innocent of the crime of murder," the prisoner protested.
"The hell you are! You were seen with Chauncey Harrigan and them Molly Maguires."
"I fully admit I was there that night to vandalize the superintendent's office, but neither I nor any of my friends intended to harm anyone. We weren't even armed. How could one of us have shot him?"
"Save your breath, mick. I don't believe you any more than the judge and jury did. All you Irishmen are full of blarney. You're nothing but a pack of thieving liars."
Conan rose angrily, his eyes flashing with fury. The guard raised his club, ready to clobber the prisoner should he make a threatening move, but the condemned miner didn't strike out. Instead, he raised his right arm and placed his hand on the wall of his cell.
"I swear before the almighty God that I'm no murderer."
When Conan put his arm down, the outline of his handprint was clearly visible against the whitewashed wall of the cell.
"As long as this building stands, that handprint," he swore, "will serve as a reminder that you are hanging an innocent man."
The guard, who was in no mood to listen to any more of the prisoner's lies, roughly pulled Conan out of his cell and led him to the gallows where the four condemned coal miners were hanged by the neck until they were dead.
* * *
Barton Pembroke didn't witness the hanging. Shortly after the trial concluded, he left Pennsylvania. Fearful of reprisals by the miners, the man who had worked undercover for his uncle's mining company took a position with the Pinkerton Detective Agency. It wasn't until 1880 that he returned to Mauch Chunk. Curiosity led him to visit cell number seventeen of the Carbon County Jail where, despite many attempts to remove the handprint from the wall, Conan McGreevy's sign of innocence remained.
Later that night, Barton and his wife were asleep in their room at the Grand View Hotel when, shortly after midnight, Melba Pembroke was awakened by her husband's screams.
"What's wrong, dear?" she asked, reaching for the lamp beside the bed.
Barton could not reply. His brown eyes, bulging from their sockets, were filled with terror, and his face had turned purple as though something were stuck in his throat, cutting off his air supply. Melba wanted to help him, but there was nothing she could do except watch Barton tear at the invisible hands of a poor Irish immigrant that were at his throat, strangling him.
* * *
It has been more than a century since the hanging of the Molly Maguires, who have since become part of the history of eastern Pennsylvania. In the 1950s the town of Mauch Chunk was renamed Jim Thorpe, in honor of the Native American hero of the 1912 Olympics. The old Carbon County Jail still stands. It is now a museum where to this day, despite all attempts to remove it, the handprint of Conan McGreevy remains on the wall of cell number seventeen.
While the characters here are fictional, this story was inspired by the execution of Thomas P. Fisher. He was hanged on March 28, 1878 for allegedly murdering Morgan Powell, superintendent of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company. Despite many attempts to remove it, his handprint can still be seen on the wall of Cell 17 of the former Carbon County Jail (now the Old Jail Museum).
On August 29, 2022, I had the opportunity to tour the historic old jail and see the handprint myself.
A handprint may be the sign of innocence; however, paw prints are a sure sign that Salem's been into my Godiva chocolates again.
