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The Hand Print in Cell 17, Carbon County Jail
The story of the hand Print in Cell 17 starts in the Carbon County Jail which is known as the Old Jail Museum to this day and is located in the town of Jim Thorpe in Pennsylvania. Being one of the most haunted places in PA, this article is with regards to a little jail cell which seems to have a very long and painful memory.
Talking of haunted places in PA the Cell number 17 in the Carbon County Jail bears proof to one man’s innocence, and all that remains is a single hand print on the wall of the cell that stands there no matter what making the Carbon County Jail one of the most haunted places in PA.
On June 21, 1877, The Day of the Rope, 10 men were hung as they dared to fight the authorities demanding an bettered treatment and better working conditions for their humans and the fellow workers.
One amongst those 10 doomed men was Alexander Campbell, a bold and outspoken ringleader. He was the man who had placed his hand on the wall and swore that it would carry on to stay there as a testimony to his innocence.
And guess what, it has, it had and it in all probability will for no one knows how a lot of more years. Its presence has makes the jail one of the most haunted places in PA.
Once, a group of hungry and tired Irish immigrants had come to the state of Pennsylvania in search of a better living away from the Political hardships and the Potato Famine back at home.
They had wrongly judged the Americans and soon got sucked into the vicious drudgery of working in the coalmines in Pennsylvania. Soon numerous young boys and men started getting killed as a result of the untold misery and hardships.
To this day the coal fields of Pennsylvania bear the scars of those desperate days and the humming whispers of the ghostly memories proceed to haunt the scenes in the ways lot more than physical burns.
These men were forced to live in tiny houses and lived knowing that all they earned was in owe to the company store. They tried to defend their cause with the Worker’s Benevolent Association which made little progression only to be shut down by the influential railroad industrialists and coal companies who scraped the community with towering fuel costs.
Soon the self respecting Irish coordinated and formed the “Molly Maguires” resolving to act according to the “The Ancient Order of the Hibernians”. They tried to do all that was possible within their limits to fetch with regards to a change.
But soon Franklin B. Gowen on behalf of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad took rigorous measures and sent a Pinkerton Detective to gain the trust of the Mollies and back stab them. Pinkerton or James McPharlan was more than successful.
He made friends with the Mollies and in scarcely 3 years assembled adequate proof to fetch down the most substantial men in the area. One of these backstabbed men was Alexander Campbell.
The day he was hung at the Carbon County Jail, one of the most haunted places in PA, Campbell tried to establish his innocence and placed a hand on the wall in Cell Number 17 and swore that it would stay there as a sign of his innocence forever.
But evidently no one gave a heed to his plea, and he was hung at the particular gallows made to hang the 10 Mollies. But the handprint genuinely stood there and still stands there on the wall till date!
Later sheriffs had tried a number of times to remove the hand print from the wall by cleaning it off, painting over it, bringing down the wall and even reconstructing in it is place. No matter what the handprint keeps coming back as if seeping in from eternity. And that is what makes the Cell 17 in the Carbon County Jail one of the most haunted places in PA.
For more haunted places in PA visit my link under if you dare.
Molly Maguires
Twenty Irish immigrants, suspected of belonging to a mystery terrorist establishment called the Molly Maguires, were executed in Pennsylvania in the 1870s for the murder of sixteen men. Ever since, there has been enormous disagreement over who the Molly Maguires were, what they did, and why they did it, as almost everything we now know when it comes to the Molly Maguires is based on the hostile descriptions of their contemporaries.
Arguing that such roots are highly inadequate to serve as the basis for a factual narrative, author Kevin Kenny examines the ideology behind contemporary proof to explain how and why a queer meaning came to be related with the Molly Maguires in Ireland and Pennsylvania. At the same time, this work examines new archival proof from Ireland that establishes that the American Molly Maguires were a rare transatlantic strand of the violent protest endemic in the Irish countryside.
Combining social and cultural history, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires offers a new comprehensible statement of who the Molly Maguires were, as well as why people wrote and believed such curious things with regards to them. In the process, it vividly retells one of the classic stories of American labor and immigration.
Review
“This terrific book adds much to our understanding of the Molly Maguires and provides details in regards to the social and ethnic landscapes of eastern Pennsylvania. It also sheds new light on how some Irish Americans understood Catholicism.”–American Historical Review
“This is a rich and subtly crafted interpretation of the Molly Maguires and their world, and the reader gains from the prodigious exploration Kenny carried out….Kenny’s definitive study presents a nuanced resourcefulness of the Molly Maguires’ lives and the world they lived in; and his book sheds a noteworthy light more in general on labour struggles in the mid-19th century.”–Labor History
“Kevin Kenny’s Making Sense of the Molly Maguires is without apparent effort the best book ever written in regards to the subject. It is meticulously researched, cautiously argued, and well written, and it brings all of the events to life…. His book is a story of the hardships of the mines, of the power of the owners and their remunerated police forces, and most exceptionally of the power of the media to portray the events in such a way as to inflame persons around the nation. And this book is when it comes to the way we write history…. The controversy over the Molly Maguires will not end with Kenny’s book. Some will see them as brutal terrorists and others as martyred heroes of the labor movement. But no one will ever again be capable to think or write badly in regards to the 1870s violence in the anthracite coal region [of eastern Pennsylvania] without reading this stunning volume.”–Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University, in a review for the History Book Club, January 1998
“Until now the Molly Maguires have dwelled in the half-light of myth and propaganda. No longer. In Making Sense of the Molly Maguires, Kevin Kenny dispels the shadows. Kenny gives us the flesh-and-blood men, their passions and grievances, the crimes they committed and the crimes committed versus them. This is a first-class work of scholarship that unfolds with the power of a detective novel. Along with making sense of the Molly Maguires, Kenny has produced an great piece of historical enlightenment. He made me think, and he made me weep. I am in awe of his achievement.”–Peter Quinn, author of Banished Children of Eve
“After exhaustive exploration in both Irish and American sources, Kevin Kenny has invented by far the best and the most sensible treatment of the Molly Maguires, the Irish-born anthracite miners who battled corporate capitalism and it is legal and clerical allies in Gilded-Age Pennsylvania. Kenny’s book does far more than make sense of this indispensable and tragic episode, for his is a very major contribution to our usual understanding of working-class, immigration, and Irish-American history.”–Kerby Miller, University of Missouri-Columbia
“Making Sense of the Molly Maguires is destined to become a definitive work on the subject and one that this reviewer recommends highly.”–Thomas Larkin, An Scathan
About the Author
Kevin Kenny is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Molly Maguires Picture
Molly Maguires Picture
Molly Maguires Picture
Molly Maguires Image
Excellent, very well-researched book
A very well-researched and elaborated account of the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania. Cuts through the myths and concentrates on the facts. Gives a very good depiction of life in the coal region at the time (much of the language, culture, etc. is still present in the region today). Also good background data on the Mollies roots in Ireland. A very scholarly work.
SHOCKING DETAIL
After reading Mr. Kenny’s account of the Mollys, I have a much better understanding of what in truth transpired in the coal fields of Eastern Pennsylvania over 100 years ago. Going beyond the typical view of the Mollys as a band of drunken crooks of Irish origin, Kenny tells of the political and corporate corruption that existed in the 1850s to 1880s. While not displaying total sympathy for the Mollys – since a heap of did fit the stereotypical image, Kenny’s accounts will alter one’s perspective of this group. Well worth reading.
Full thoughtfulness of a complex historical event
Kenny digs into the broader social and historical forces that operated in the Irish coal miners and the community in which they found themselves. The events underneath review are themselves shocking. Like the 9/11 attacks, they seem almost incomprehensible because of their violence and the drama surrounding the events. The Molly Maguries were more than simple killers — the women’s clothing, for example, is a clue that something beyond a simple murder. Kenny gives his comprehensible statement of WHY events unfolded as they did.
Kenny has a scholarly point to make and academic readers will be rewarded with Kenny’s solid analysis. This is a severe work on a severe subject. It is well worth a bit of intellectual effort. It also makes a fine addition to the reading list of an upper level undergrad or graduate history course. However, the general reader with an interest in Irish-American history, labor history, and/or European immigrant history will also find this book interesting and informative.
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