Thomas Duffy

DESCRIPTION: "Come all ye true-born Irishmen, wherever you may be." The singer tells of "ten brave Irishmen... Who died in Pennsylvania on the 21st of June." Thomas Duffy and James Carroll are hanged. Duffy always denied the charge. The singer hopes they are in heaven
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch)
KEYWORDS: labor-movement mining trial execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Jun 21, 1877 - Hanging of ten alleged Molly Maguire members in Pennsylvania
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch, pp. 265-267, "Thomas Duffy" (1 text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 152-153, "Thomas Duffy" (1 text)
Roud #4093
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E32] (subject: the Long Strike and the Molly Maguires) and references there
NOTES [925 words]: This is item dE32 in Laws's Appendix II.
For background on the Molly Maguires, see the notes to "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E25]. The Mollies were Pennsylvania coal miners; there had been a spike of violence in the anthracite fields in 1874-1875, when the mine owners had tried to cut wages and benefits; Kenny, p. 8, has a list of murders with possible mining connections in 1862-1875. There are sixteen in all, of which two happened in 1874 and six in 1875. As a result, the mine owners hired the Pinkertons to improve the situation -- presumably by bringing the murderers to trial. It took some time for the Pinkertons to infiltrate, but eventually they accused many anthracite miners of crimes up to and including murder.
The trials that followed almost certainly would not meet today's standards of justice. As detailed in the entry on "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E25], the testimony against those convicted came mostly from one man, the Pinkerton infiltrator James McParlan(d), whose job depended on securing convictions and who may have helped arrange some of the murders. The only supporting testimony came from informants such as Lawler; there was no physical evidence, and often the accused had people who were willing to swear to alibis -- but who, being Irish, were not taken seriously. Someone committed the murders, but it's hard to believe that the trials determined the truth.
They racked up an impressive body count, though. In all, twenty men were executed (Kenny, p. 270, has the list). Ten of them were executed on one day, "Black Thursday," June 21, 1877. Four were hung in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, and six in Pottsville -- the "ten brave Irishmen" of this song, which also has the day correct. Two of the six who died in Pottsville were James Carroll and Thomas Duffy, both mentioned in this song.
In Duffy's case, "[James] Kerrigan [mentioned in this song, and the subject of his own song or poem, "James Kerrigan's Confession," which see] was the star witness, testifying for three days and covering how he and Duffy had been beaten up by Yost and McCarron, and how Duffy had sworn revenge and offered [James] Roarity ten dollars to kill Yost. So much for the motive, although it came from a notorious liar who contradicted his earlier testimony. Even so, no participation by Duffy in the murder itself could be proven, and the most damaging evidence was that he spent the night at Carroll's to provide an alibi" (Riffenburgh, p. 145). James McParland offered his usual testimony to claim that just about every Irishman in Pennsylvania was a Molly Maguire, but he had nothing specific on Duffy.
"When the case went to the jury it seemed far from proven, and Judge Walker's instructions 'leaned toward the side of mercy... [H]ardly a soul in the courtroom but was satisfied Duffy's chances of acquittal were more than even.' Nevertheless, early the next morning Duffy was pronounced guilty of first degree murder" (Riffenburgh, pp. 145-146).
"Of the ten men who were hanged on Black Thursday, the one whose conviction contemporary observers found most questionable was Thomas Duffy. The only evidence against him had been provided by the informer Jimmy Kerrigan, and it had come as a surprise even to the most hostile observers when he was convicted of first-degree murder the previous September. It was widely rumored in Pottsville that he would win a reprieve at the last moment..... The details are vague and incomplete, but according to several contemporary sources, Governor Hantranft had sent his private secretary, Chester N. Farr, to Pottsville with a reprieve for Duffy, to be used in the event that one or more of the other condemned men should declare Duffy innocent. Roarity did precisely that in his final words on the scaffold. But Farr apparently decided that this explicit statement of Duffy's innocence was inadequate; the reprieve stayed in his pocket, and Duffy was duly executed" (Kenny, pp. 255-256).
Before the execution, the six men in Pottsville received communion, along with Duffy's brother James (who was found guilty of perjury in the case -- his perjury basically being that he had given his brother an alibi, so if Thomas Duffy was innocent, then so was James) and others (Kenny, p. 253). The six men were hung in pairs (Kenny, p. 254), with Carroll and Roarity being the second pair (Kenny, p. 254) and Duffy and Thomas Munley the third; Duffy was attended at the end by a Father McGovern (Kenny, p. 255). Duffy, when asked if he had any last words, said, "There is no use." He and Mulney were hung at 1:20 p.m. (Kenny, p. 255).
Acording to Kenny, p. 291, Duffy had been born around 1852 in Donegal and emigrated to the U. S. as a child.
Kenny, p. 290, says that Carroll was an American by birth, having been born of Irish parents in Wilkes-Barre around 1837. He doesn't seem to have ever been a mine worker himself. He moved to Tamaqua in Schuylkill County in 1872, and ran a hotel and saloon; he also became secretary of the local branch of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (the organization that the Pinkertons falsely equated with the Molly Maguires; while most Mollies seem to have belonged to the AOH, the reverse clearly was not true). The Pinkertons claimed that the assassination of Benjamin F. Yost -- the murder for which both he and Duffy died -- was planned at his saloon.
Other songs with connections to the Yost murder include "Hugh McGeehan" and "The Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle."
There are a sketch portraits of Duffy and Carroll in Kenny's photo insert. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.2
File: CAFS1152

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.