On this day, Dec. 18, 1878, John “Black Jack” Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires, was executed in Pottsville, Pa.
The Mollies were an Irish secret society formed to protect exploited Irish-American workers in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. They were allegedly responsible for incidents of vigilante justice that included violence and murder.
Even today, the existence of the group is debated, and many argue that the terror waged by the coal miner owners against the Irish immigrants was much greater than what the Mollies dished out.
Kehoe was sent to the gallows for a 1862 cold-case murder that he probably didn’t commit. More than 100 years later, a posthumous pardon was issued for Kehoe by Gov. Milton Shapp.
Sean Connery played Kehoe in the 1970 movie, “The Molly Maguires.”
— Scott McCabe
