and had no intimate connection with the murder. It was rumored that a detective was in their midst and suspicion. fell upon McParlan. Having heard the report more than once Jack Kehoe, one of the most adroit men in the society, became convinced of its truth and sent the word around that McParlan [McKenna] was a detective and that members must beware of him. Hearing this, McParlan went to Kehoe and demanded, "Why do you spread these reports about me?" "I heard it from a conductor on the Reading railroad," was the answer. "He called me into the baggage car and said that I might be certain that you were a detective. I told him it was not the first time I had heard the charge made against you." McParlan denounced the charge as a slander and demanded a convention of the order to investigate the matter. "I will let the society try me," he said; "and if I find out the man who is lying about me, I will make him suffer. It is a terrible thing to charge a man like me with being a detective." They agreed that a county convention should be called and, as Kehoe was too nervous to write the notices, he asked McParlan to write them in his name, who therefore summoned in proper form all the body-masters of the county to convene at Shenandoah for his own trial [about March 1].

Meanwhile the report concerning McParlan gained force, helped on by the assertion of the leading attorney for the defence of Doyle that, in some unaccountable way, the attorneys for the Commonwealth got hold of the minute details of their line of defence.1 On the day before the one fixed for the convention, McParlan, while at

1 McParlan was aware of the various steps and his information was communicated to the attorneys for the Commonwealth.

Pottsville, was charged with being a detective by another Molly, who further asserted that the convention at Shenandoah was a game of his to get all the body-masters and officers together and have them arrested by Captain Linden and his Coal and Iron Police. To allay this suspicion McParlan went at once to see Linden and asked him not to have the police there at all. "I believe," he said, "I can fight them right through and make them believe I am no detective." Linden reluctantly consented but told McParlan that he was running a very great risk.

Linden was right. Earlier in the day, McParlan had seen Kehoe and the two arranged to travel together to Shenandoah that evening, that they might be there for the convention early on the morrow. But Kehoe stole away thither on an earlier train, got together McAndrew, the body-master of the Shenandoah division, and a number of the Mollies, telling them that, beyond doubt, McParlan was a detective and that he must be killed. "For God's sake have him killed to-night," he added, "or he will hang half the people in Schuylkill county." The men consented, McAndrew with reluctance as he was fond of McParlan. Kehoe went home but a dozen men assembled a little below the station, armed with axes, tomahawks and sledges and waited for the coming of McParlan, intending to inveigle him down there on the track and kill him, avoiding the use of fire-arms in order not to attract the policemen around the station.

Meanwhile McParlan was travelling towards Shenandoah on the evening train, his suspicions aroused from Kehoe's failure to join him as agreed, and they grew, when he was not met as usual at the station by five or six comrades to discuss the news and have a drink. He

went into the saloon of a member whom he found so nervous and excited that he could hardly open the bottle of porter called for. Walking on he met another member, ordinarily friendly, who hardly spoke to him, then another, Sweeney, who was less cold but of whom he was so suspicious that as they went on together he invented some excuse to make him walk ahead lest he should receive a blow from behind. He kept his hand on his revolver ready to meet an attack. Arriving at McAndrew's he noticed two Mollies on guard and that his friend was nervous and uneasy. Sweeney went cut, came back again and threw a little piece of snow at McAndrew as a signal for action to which the latter replied, "My feet are sore; I guess I will take off my boots" which was as much as to say I have abandoned the project. With truth did McAndrew tell McParlan next day, "I saved your life last night." McParlan on the alert knew something was up and after a question about the meeting said good night and started for his boarding house but not by his usual route, taking instead a by-way through a swamp. He slept little for he was constantly on his guard against an attempt at assassination.

Next morning there was no sign of a convention and McParlan made up his mind to go to Girardville and demand of Kehoe the reason. Hiring a horse and cutter, he took McAndrew with him; and two other Mollies in a similar conveyance started after them. What does this mean? asked McParlan. "Look here," was the reply, "you had better look out, for that man who is riding in that sleigh behind you calculates to take your life. Have you got your pistols?" "Yes," said McParlan. "So have I," returned McAndrew, "and I will lose my life

for you. I do not know whether you are a detective or not but I do not know anything against you. I always knew you were doing right and I will stand by you. Why don't they try you fair?" Then McAndrew told of the plot of the previous day adding, "You will find out that you are in a queer company this minute." "I do not give a cent," replied McParlan; "I am going down to Kehoe's." To Kehoe's they went. Kehoe was surprised to see McParlan still alive in company with the men who had agreed to kill him. Yet they fell to discussing the burning question when Kehoe intimated to him that he had learned his true character from Father O'Connor. On McParlan's determining to go to see the priest at Mahanoy Plane, a number of Mollies went along. The one to whom the killing of the detective was assigned got too drunk to make the attempt; but on their return to Shenandoah McAndrew would not permit McParlan to go to his boarding house for fear of assassination but insisted that he should sleep in his [McAndrew's] quarters.

Having failed to find Father O'Connor when he left Kehoe's, McParlan made a second unsuccessful attempt on the next day, but not caring to pass another night at Shenandoah he went on to Pottsville. "There," he said to Captain Linden, "I have come to the conclusion that they have had a peep at my hand and that the cards are all played." Shadowed by Linden, he went, on the following day, to Mahanoy Plane, had a long talk with Father O'Connor, learning that not only O'Connor, but two other Catholic priests as well, believed that he was a Pinkerton detective in the employ of the Reading company. Satisfied that his mission was generally known he returned to Pottsville that evening and next morning [March 5 or 6]

left for Philadelphia, ending his experience of nearly two years as a Molly Maguire.1

A word here should be said concerning the position of the Roman Catholic clergy. Father O'Connor's aversion to McParlan was not due to any love for the Molly Maguires. On the contrary he had denounced them from the pulpit and read only a short time previous, the pastoral letter of Archbishop Wood excommunicating all lawless societies and especially the Molly Maguires. But Father O'Connor looked upon McParlan as

pigeon egging his associates on to crime in order to enhance his own glory and profit as a detective.2

Wood was the Archbishop of Philadelphia and had almost from the first been cognizant of and sympathetic with the means which Gowen employed to bring the Molly Maguires to justice.

The trial of Edward Kelly for the murder of Jones began at Mauch Chunk on March 27. The counsel for the Commonwealth was the same as in the Doyle case. The lawyers for the prisoner made "eloquent appeals" invoking sympathy for him "on account of his youth" and for his "poor desolate widowed mother." 4 On April 6, the jury brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree, the second conviction of the kind in the history of the anthracite region against a Molly Maguire. He was sentenced to be hanged. Death warrants were issued by the Governor fixing the day of execution for

1 McParlan's testimony in the case of The Commonwealth vs. John Kehoe et al.; Dewees.

2 Ibid.

3 Gowen's argument in the case of The Commonwealth vs. Thomas Munley.

* Dewees, 280.