Michael J. Doyle

DESCRIPTION: "Mount Laffee, oh my happy home! Of thee I love to sing." He recalls going home there after finishing work each day. But then "a crowd of men" arrested him. Some charge them them. Doyle is in prison, unable to go out or see those he would like to see
AUTHOR: purportedly Michael J. Doyle
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch)
KEYWORDS: mining punishment prison home homicide
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch, pp. 261-262, "Michael J. Doyle" (1 text)
Roud #4092
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E32] (subject: the Long Strike and the Molly Maguires) and references there
cf. "The Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle" (character of Michael J. Doyle)
NOTES [966 words]: This song is item dE31 in Laws's Appendix II.
Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch has three poems or songs about (two of them allegedly by) Michael J. Doyle: "Doyle's Pastime on St. Patrick's Day," "Michael J. Doyle," and "The Doom of Camplbell, Kelly and Doyle." None of them seem to have been collected outside of Korson; I doubt any of them became traditional. For this reason, I have not indexed "Doyle's Pastime." But "Michael J. Doyle" and "The Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle" are both cited by Laws, albeit as of dubious traditionality, so I have indexed them.
For the background to the whole issue of the Long Strike and the Molly Maguires, see the notes to "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E32]. Briefly, in the 1870s, the owners of the mines in the Pennsylvania anthracite region put the squeeze on their workers. The workers responded by striking -- an event known as "The Long Strike." It failed, and the miners had to go back to work for reduced pay. In the aftermath, there were a series of murders in the anthracite region, blamed on the "Molly Maguires." The mine owners infiltrated the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) to try to find those responsible. They eventually arrested many, and tried and executed twenty men. One of them was Michael J. Doyle; he, along with Alexander Campbell and Edward Kelly (the three heroes of "The Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle") were hung for the murder of John P. Jones. (For more about Jones, see the notes to "Jimmy Kerrigan's Confession.")
Kenny, p. 291, gives this short bio of Doyle. "AOH member, Mount Laffee, Shuylkill County. Born in Mount Laffee of Irish parents. Worked at the No. 5 Colliery in the Panther Creek Valley, for the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company. Hanged at Mauch Chunk on June 21, 1877, for the murder of John P. Jones."
Riffenburgh, pp. 98, tells us that there had already been a plan to murder Jones, which failed, before Doyle et al became involved. Riffenburgh, pp. 98-99, gives this description of the second, successful, attempt on Jones's life. "September 1, two men from the Mount Laffee lodge, Edward Kelly and Michael J. Doyle... had arrived at [James] Carroll's saloon, where they had been sent to carry out the job. Carroll told [future informer James] Kerrigan [for whom see "Jimmy Kerrigan's Confession"] to lead them to Lansford to commit the murder, after which he could guide them back to safety."
"That evening, the three made their way first to Campbell's liquor store and then to Summit Hill and then to Summit Hill, the western terminus of the switchback railroad, where [Hugh] McGehan's new tavern was located. [McGe(e)han is the subject of another Korson piece, "Hugh McGeehan."] After McGehan cleaned and oiled two pistols, Campbell, realizing that none of the three had ever seen Jones and needed to be certain of his identity, 'gave them a description of Jones.'
"The next day, Kerrigan, Doyle, and Kelly wandered over to Jones's neighborhood... Jones took the train from the Lansford depot, thereby eluding his killers. They hunted him that day.
"Coincidentally, that night, having decided that the danger had been overestimated, Jones stayed in his own house with his wife and seven children for the first time in weeks. Around 7:00 A.M., he headed down the pipeway for the Lansford depot, half a mile away. Carelessly alone and unprotected... he was within one hundred yards of the depot when Kelly and Doyle approached him on the path, and he moved aside to let them pass. Instead, the two men drew their pistols and shot him, Doyle twice. Jones tried to reach the bushes to escape but was pursued, and when the wounded man fell, Doyle... riddled his body with bullets. Kerrigan and the two killers then fled toward the high woods to the west."
Witnesses had seen enough to recognize the "highly disreputable" (and extremely short) Kerrigan, so a search quickly began. A posse found Kerrigan, and then Doyle and Kelly, "who were quickly captured while drinking whiskey near a mountain spring" (Riffenburgh, pp. 99-100).
There were many trials of accused Molly Maguires; the Jones case came first, with Doyle, Kelly, and Kerrigan asking for separate trials. Doyle's was first (Kenny, p. 214); it began January 26, 1876 and concluded on February 1 with Doyle convicted of first degree murder (Kenny, p. 215). It was one of the rare Molly trials where neither James McParlan nor Kerrigan testified -- though the trial did induce Kerrigan to turn informant. (As in so many such cases, the worst of the criminals, Kerrigan, survived by turning informant, while the slightly more reputable defendants were punished.) Kerrigan's confession led police to arrest Carroll, James Roarity, Thomas Duffy (for whom see "Thomas Duffy"), McGehan, James Boyle, and Alexander Campbell (Kenny, p. 216). Campbell, Doyle, Kelly, Boyle, Carroll, Duffy, McGehan, and Roarity would all hang (in different towns) on July 21, 1877, Doyle and Kelly for the murder of Jones; Campbell for his parts in the deaths of Jones and Morgan Powell; Boyle, Carroll, Duffy, McGehan, and Roarity for the murder of Benjamin Yost (Kenny, p. 270). Most of them were probably guilty, although the evidence was far from perfect; it is quite possible that Duffy was innocent.
For more about all this (some of it the same as the text in this entry), see the notes to "The Doom of Camplbell, Kelly and Doyle."
The song is correct in saying Doyle was from Mount Laffee; he lived his entire life there. I do not know who the "Mike Keely" of the second verse was; he was not noteworthy among the Molly Maguires. Probably he was just a friend of Doyle's. And Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania) was the largest local town, which explains both why the officers who arrested him came from there and why Doyle was hanged there. - RBW
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