McParlan
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Pinkerton agent who infiltrated the Mollie Maguires
NICKNAME/ALIAS: James McKenna
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 1844, Northern Ireland.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: May 19, 1919, Denver, CO. Aged about 75
DISCIPLINE: Detective
FIELD: Security
MAJOR WORK: None
LIFE AND TIMES:
McParlan emigrated from Ireland to the United States at age 19 and made his way to Chicago, where he drove a wagon team for a coal company and worked at various jobs on the railroad, including night watchman. Around 1868, he became acquainted with the wife of famous American detective Pinkerton*, and in 1871 joined the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, whose headquarters were in Chicago. He began his detective work on the railroads investigating fraud by conductors.
In 1873, Franklin B. Gowen, the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and of its coal and iron subsidiary, asked Pinkerton to help crush the secret society known as the Molly Maguires. This land-reform group started in Ireland 30 years earlier during the potato famine to frighten rent collectors, landlords, and others who oppressed the poor. (The society is believed to have been named after a widow murdered because she was unable to pay her debts). The organization was brought to the United States by Irish immigrants and, from 1862, carried out a reign of terror in the depressed anthracite-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Its stated aim was to fight injustices being done miners, who, in fact, were working for subsistence wages (they were often deeply in debt to the company stores) and under shockingly dangerous working conditions. The Molly Maguires were blamed for terrorist assassinations (50 in Schuylkill County alone between 1863 and 1867) and acts of sabotage, particularly on the railroads which carried coal freight, adding to the tensions caused by frequent miners' strikes.
In October, 1873, Pinkerton sent McParlan to infiltrate the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish fraternal association believed to be a front for the terrorists. McParlan changed his name to "James McKenna" and made himself known to the Molly Maguires, posing as a hard-drinking, hard-fighting miner with a shady past. His bravado and generosity made him popular and a fist-fight he won clinched his reputation. Within weeks, he had gained the confidence of the local Molly leaders and was invited to join the Shenandoah Lodge. By mid-1874, he was made secretary because he could write. Over the next two years, he sent back almost daily reports on the Mollies to Pinkerton, including news of several planned arsons and murders.
But McParlan was not safe from suspicion and he was always uneasy. To prove he was what he said he was, he worked in the mines at Shenandoah, loading 20 tons of anthracite a day into the coal wagons. He began drinking more heavily to consolidate his reputation as a drunk, and to avoid being sent on sabotage and murder assignments.
During the Long Strike of 1875, the violence increased. Mines were blown up, trains wrecked, and stores looted. The police and officials retaliated, persecuting and sometimes killing miners. In July, when the murder of a respected police officer caused a public outcry and the violence intensified, Pinkerton decided to use McParlan's evidence. McParlan's assessment of the Mollies was that they were only marginally political, and, in effect, a band of criminals dedicated to making money and settling personal vendettas.
In late 1875, Pinkerton anonymously sent to certain newspapers the names and addresses of more than 400 Mollies. This evidence led to the arrest and conviction in February, 1876, of one of the murderers of the policeman, the first such trial of a Molly Maguire in which the jury was not fixed and which did not end with an acquittal. Meanwhile, the Mollies' suspicion of McParlan was rapidly increasing and he felt his life in danger. As a ploy, he sent an urgent request to Pinkerton to arrest him, which Pinkerton did. While McParlan was in jail, another Molly turned state's evidence, and McParlan decided to testify also (unusual for a Pinkerton agent). After many arrests, a series of sensational trials took place during 1876-77. Now aware of McParlan's double life, the Molly Maguires hired assassins to kill him. McParlan was kept under heavy guard, but by now there was so much evidence in Pinkerton's file, convictions were certain, even without McParlan's help.
In the end, McParlan helped bring about more than 60 convictions. Eleven men convicted on the strength of his testimony were among 19 who were hanged. Pinkerton's account of the episode appeared in "The Molly Maguires and the Detectives" in 1877, and writer Conan Doyle* (who in 1913 was told the tale by another American detective, William J. Burns*) wrote a Sherlock Holmes melodrama about the gang: "The Valley of Fear" (1915), making McParlan a legend. McParlan's health had been shattered by his years as a miner and outlaw and a heavy drinker, and he was sent to Denver by Pinkerton in the hope that the clear mountain air might restore him. McParlan became head of the Denver branch of the Pinkerton agency. He died in May 1919.
ASSESSMENT: A famous American detective of the 19th century
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: James McParlan, famous Pinkerton man.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EB
United States National Biography
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
SPOUSE: Mary
CHILDREN: None
EDUCATION: Unknown