Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle, The

DESCRIPTION: "Kind-hearted Christians, I pray you give attention, It's of a young man, down in jail he doth lie, For the shooting of the boss, John P. Jones." Doyle and Kelly committed the murder. Kerrigan also took part. The lawyers slandered them; bad luck to them
AUTHOR: purportedly Mike Reddy
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch)
KEYWORDS: mining punishment prison homicide lawyer
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch, pp. 263-264, "The Doom of Campbell, Kelly and Doyle" (1 text)
Roud #4090
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Muff Lawler, the Squealer" [Laws E32] (subject: the Long Strike and the Molly Maguires) and references there
cf. "Michael J. Doyle" (character of Michael J. Doyle)
NOTES [1616 words]: This song is item dE29 in Laws's Appendix II.
Korson-MinstrelsOfTheMinePatch has three poems or songs about the accused in the John P. Jones murder case, this one and two allegedly by Michael J. Doyle: "Doyle's Pastime on St. Patrick's Day" and "Michael J. 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, pp. 290-291, gives this short biography of Campbell: "AOH treasurer, Storm Hill, Lansford, Carbon County. Born in Dungloe, County Donegal, in 1833. Came to the United States in 1868. Worked in the [Pennsylvania coal] mines for a year and a half, then opened a hotel, the Columbia House, in Tamaqua. Moved to Summit Hill, where he opened another tavern. Hanged at Mauch Chunk on June 21, 1877, for the murders of Morgan Powell and John P. Jones."
P. 291 has a bio of Doyle: "AOH member, Mount Laffee, Schuylkill 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."
It appears little is known of Edward Kelly; the bio on p. 292 says only "AOH member, Mount Laffee, Schuylkill County. Born in Mount Laffee, Schuylkill County, of Irish parents. Hanged at Mauch Chunk on June 21, 1877, for the murder of Benjamin Yost." [The latter is probably an error; p. 270 says he was hanged for killing John P. Jones, which is the case for which he was tried.]
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, 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," which see.] 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 Doye 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; Riffenburgh, p. 113 says that this was thought to be because Kelly looked young and innocent, so he would be harder to convict); 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.
Doyle's trial came before Kerrigan confessed (in fact, the confession was the result of the way the Doyle case was going), so the state had little evidence of motive, but they had much testimony that Doyle had been there, with a gun, at the time of Jones's death (Riffenburgh, p. 114).
Curiously, the defense made no attempt to state a case (Riffenburgh, p. 115). I seem to recall that Kenny thought the defense lawyers were just going through the motions; alternately, perhaps they were trying to give the jury the impression that the state had no case. Whatever their thinking, it didn't help. It took the jury less than a day to return a guilty verdict.
Many of the details in this song are accurate:
- Campbell, Doyle, and Kelly, as we have seen, were condemned for the killing of Jones.
- Doyle and Kelly were the ones convicted of actually doing the deed, with Campbell an accomplice.
- Kerrigan was along with the murderers, and he did turn informant.
- "Hughes and Albright" are Charles Albright and Francis W. Hughes. They were not the lead lawyers in all Molly Maguire cases, but where Franklin Gowen did not participate, they often took the lead (Riffenburgh, p. 139), as they would in the Doyle case.
-- Charles Albright 1830-1880) was a Civil War veteran who wore his uniform in court (Kenny, p. 82; on p. 95 he calls him a mine owner and general. This is not really correct; Albright was a brigadier general only by brevet; Phisterer, p. 302 #1893. Based on HuntMidAtlantic, pp. 9. 19, 23, it appears his highest substantive rank was colonel, and he spent almost two years at that rank without being promoted; he was bounced around between three different regiments, which to me translates as "political officer, brave but not very effective"). A graduate of Dickinson College, he was admitted to the bar in 1852 and practiced in Mauch Chunk (PennsylvaniaBD, p. 3). As early as 1863, he had been writing to Abraham Lincoln about the rebelliousness of the miners (Kenny, p. 95). He had served a term in congress 1873-1875 (PennsylvaniaBD, p. 4). He was lawyer for Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company (meaning he worked for Doyle's boss) and worked with District Attorney E. W. Siewers (Kenny, pp. 214-215, who elsewhere says that Albright led the prosecution. According to Riffenburgh, p. 113, the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre was the coal firm most ardent about going after the Mollies).
-- Francis W. Hughes had a long legal history in the area; apparently he had been a District Attorney as early as the 1840s! (Kenny, p. 67). He had been an antiwar Democrat (Kenny, p. 83) who had a tendency to violent rhetoric (e.g. he approved of at least one local murder; Kenny, pp. 98-99); he had actually defended the head of the old W.B.A. union (Kenny, p. 178 n. 62). But he supported the Reading Railroad against the Mollies (Kenny, p. 215). He would insist that the Mollies had "no place in the United States" (Kenny, p. 242).
- Kalbfus is Daniel Kalbfus, a local attorney who was part of the defense team (Kenny, p. 215). He would argue that James McParlan helped instigate the Molly killings (Kenny, p. 232), which I think is at least partly true. He also went to Governor Hantranft personally to appeal for clemency for Campbell (Kenny, p. 247), but it obviously didn't work. He was one of five defense lawyers in the Doyle case (Riffenburgh, p. 114). He was on the defense team for most of the Molly trials (Riffenburgh, p. 124).
I have no information about Mike Reddy, the purported author of the poem. - RBW
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