The Murder of Benjamin F. Yost, Tuesday July 6, 1875

 "Character!  Character!  What can I say of this despicable wretch, this curse let loose from hell, a confessed murderer, a participant in the most fearful of crimes."

--Lin Bartholomew, attorney, dramatically impeaching a witness (James Kerrigan of Newkirk) who had turned state's evidence against his client in the Molly Maguires’ trial - Commonwealth v James Carroll, James Roarity, James Boyle, Hugh McGeehan, and Thomas Duffy - conducted in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania in the 1876. [Shenandoah Herald, July 24, 1876]

Background

During the year 1874 and into 1875, the aforementioned James Kerrigan was in the habit of carousing frequently with Thomas Duffy of Tamaqua, PA. [Details about the people and trials from The Molly Maguires : The origin, growth, and character of the organization by   Dewees, F. P. (Francis Percival), Publication date: 1877, Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott] Being Irish, both belonged to the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) and both were hard drinkers. According to some Duffy was a loud and quarrelsome drunk. Kerrigan was himself described as noisy, reckless, ready for anything. They had both been arrested by the Tamaqua police, and locked up on several occasions.

James Kerrigan

One of the two night-shift policemen in Tamaqua was Benjamin F. Yost, a Pennsylvania German. In making arrests, Kerrigan and Duffy had been harshly treated, and on one occasion, during the fall of 1874, Yost beat Duffy severely on the head with his nightstick.

Benjamin F. Yost

Duffy desired revenge. He brought a prosecution against Yost for assault and battery; this case was, however, settled on unknown terms. But his animosity towards Yost did not end, and he determined to kill him. He proposed this to Kerrigan, who agreed, since he had his own grievances to avenge. 

Thomas Duffy

Kerrigan was at this time the nominal body-master of the Tamaqua AOH Division, but the real head was James Carroll, who kept the Union House, a tavern on East Broad Street and sort of AOH hangout. Duffy and Kerrigan met at Carroll's with James Roarity of nearby Coaldale and head of the AOH there. Later, Roarity mentioned this nascent plot to Alex Campbell a liquor-dealer and tavern owner in Storm Hill (Lansford) and previous owner of Carroll’s Union House. Coincidentally, at this time in the neighborhoods of Storm Hill and Summit Hill, it had also determined that another murder was being discussed. - that of John P. Jones, a mine superintendent for the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company (LWC). Thus, the idea of an exchange of killings at once suggested itself. Men from Summit Hill in Carbon County would kill Yost and men from Schuylkill County would kill Jones. 

Site of the Union House Tavern, 132 E. Broad Street, Tamaqua

At this time and certainly after the murder and trial, the AOH was synonymous with was to become known as the "Molly Maguires". A private undercover operation headed in part by James “McKenna” McParlan of Pinkerton Detectives and instituted by Franklin Gowen, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was several years along at this time. But it is crucial to note that all of this Yost murder planning took place without knowledge of McParlan or John Kehoe the alleged Molly Maguire kingpin.

The actual killing occurred in the early morning of July 6, 1875 when Hugh McGeehan and James Boyle (both of the Summit Hill area) shot Yost at the corner of Broad and Lehigh Streets in Tamaqua. Kerrigan accompanied the actual killers to the site and then led then away.

The murder remained “unsolved” until Kerrigan later was arrested and confessed to the taking part in the Jone's killing later in September 1875.  McParlan, however, became aware of the transaction in the weeks after the Yost murder occurred (when he was sent by his employer (still undercover) to Tamaqua to investigate) and reported his findings. But the decision was made by his employer to not reveal all facts to the authorities to protect its undercover investigation. Moreover, although the record is unclear, McParlan learned of the Jones plot and, half-heartedly at best, warned Jones’ employers; in retrospect, his and his employers' lack of real action likely caused Jones to lose his life.

The Murder of Benjamin F. Yost

Planning

The planning of the murder took place early in 1975 at Carroll's Tavern. Carroll, the de facto head of the AOH Division in Tamaqua was made aware of Duffy and Kerrigan's intent to murder Yost.  Duffy happened to meet James Roarity, the head of Coaldale AOH, at Carroll's. He spoke to Roarity of the murder and Roarity consented (for money), promising that if he did not do it himself, he would send over others who would.

Roarity, after his talk with Duffy, mentioned that they (Duffy and Kerrigan with Carroll's apparent acquiescence) had in contemplation the murder of Yost, and the request made that he should do it, to Alex Campbell (a prominent member of the AOH). It so happened that at this time others in Storm Hill and Summit Hill had also contemplated a murder, the intended victim being John P. Jones, a boss at LWC, who had black-listed several Summit Hiller's (William Mulhall and Hugh McGeehan). An agreement was then made with Campbell. Men were to be furnished from Summit Hill to kill Yost in consideration of Carroll and Kerrigan sending men from Schuylkill County to kill Jones. Mulhall and McGeehan, as parties especially interested, were selected on the part of Summit Hill. Yost was to be killed first. 

The Murder

The Fourth of July, 1875, fell on a Sunday. July 5 was therefore the national holiday. Roarity had come  to Tamaqua, and, about eleven o'clock in the morning, met Kerrigan at Carroll's. Roarity and Kerrigan walked to Storm Hill, and they would come back together later. Roarity and Kerrigan went at once to Campbell's. Inquiry was made for Mulhall and McGeehan, but Campbell said he had not seen them. Roarity found them and reported to Campbell and Kerrigan that they had agreed to go to Tamaqua that night for the killing, and that he would guide them over. Roarity's pistol, had already been sent to Carroll's bar. The point for the assassination of Yost had been selected by Carroll, Duffy, and Kerrigan - the corner at Broad and Lehigh at the west end of the town. 

Location of Yost Murder (July 6, 1875) at Lamp post Broad and Lehigh Sts, in Tamaqua

Roarity then bowed out; his wife had become ill. Then after Kerrigan had left Storm Hill, Campbell and McGeehan, concluded that Mulhall, as a married man with a family, was better left at home, and Jame Boyle, who was available, was asked to go instead, and consented.

After arrival at the Union House, the conspirators wandered about in the kitchen and the barroom, and Kerrigan in different parts of town. The others only went out once before they left. In order to fully appreciate the plan in view, Duffy walked with McGeehan and Boyle up to the chosen location. McGeehan would use the Roarity pistol, and Boyle would have a small single-shot pistol belonging to Carroll. In a bit of irony Kerrigan during the evening met Yost and had a drink with another policeman.

Kerrigan went home to Newkirk and would arrange to meet afterwards. Duffy led McGeehan and Boyle up the back to the (Odd Fellows) cemetery, there to leave them and return to Carroll's bar, as an alibi. Kerrigan met the two at the cemetery and led them to the street-lamp and placed them under large trees nearby where they waited over an hour. Yost and the other policeman (Barney McCarron) came up the street, but, instead of putting out the light at once, as had been expected, they first went into Yost's house to eat. 

The two policemen came out of the house, and Yost proceeded to the lamp post and mounted the ladder, McCarron remaining a distance away across the street. At this moment McGeehan and Boyle stepped forward and shot Yost.  Boyle missed his mark, but McGeehan's pistol inflicted a fatal wound in Yost's right side. Yost staggered from the ladder, exclaiming, "Oh! my God! I am shot! my wife!" 

The murderers, led by Kerrigan, fled. The other policeman ran after them, firing two shots, which, McGeehan returned.  The assailants scurried along the main road to the west and turned towards the Sharp Mountain. Kerrigan took them through unfrequented paths, then again turning into the town they passed through alleys and back streets to the eastern limits of the borough. The had met no one. Kerrigan continued with them until they were certain of their road back, and then returned to his own home unnoticed. 

Dr. Solliday arrived, examined the wound, and confirmed that Yost was mortally wounded. Death did not, however, occur until ten o'clock the next morning. In the meantime Yost conversed with Dr. Solliday, with Squire Lebo, Conrad F. Shindel, and with Daniel F. Shepp, a brother-in-law of Mrs. Yost. Neither policeman could confirm the identity of the shooters nor did they implicate Kerrigan or Duffy only confirming there were two assailants, not seeing Kerrigan.

McParlan in Tamaqua to Snoop Around

After Yost died, an inquest was held without result. Months passed and no arrests were made. The public would settle into the belief that it was but another murder open and defiant but impossible of detection. 

Nevertheless, Michael Beard, Daniel Shepp, and some others in Tamaqua, could not rid themselves of suspicion. Yost had not, to their knowledge, except Kerrigan and Duffy  (cleared by testimony of Mrs. Carroll and the dying declaration of Yost), an enemy in the world, and a murder entirely motiveless was beyond their comprehension. It was determined by Daniel Shepp and Michael Beard to employ the Pinkerton Agency, if necessary, at their own expense. Pinkerton representatives did not disclose to them the details of their ongoing undercover operation, but McParlan received instructions on July 14, 1875, to investigate and report about Yost.  Mc Parlan, as McKenna, made his appearance in Tamaqua, the scene of action, and conducted his investigation. He knew the Union House to be an AOH hangout, and, going there, for the first time formed the acquaintance of James Carroll. Carroll had heard of  McParlan (as McKenna) and one of the trusted AOH leaders of the Mahanoy Valley lodges and thus treated him cordially.

He used the pretext of AOH business to re-connect with Alex Campbell to whom he was somewhat acquainted, and by July 25, had learned that Yost's murder had been performed by unnamed members of the Summit Hill lodge. McParlan now temporarily based himself in Tamaqua, calling again at Carroll's bar, and learned about the murder weapons, the two pistols, that one was  Roarity's  and a small one was Carroll's. The conspirators were identified as Duffy, Kerrigan, Roarity, and Carroll. He did not, however, give the names of those who actually committed the crime. McKenna who had been stopping at the Columbia  House (at the Five Points) in Tamaqua now concluded to make Carroll's his local hangout. He also began calling, romantically, on Kerrigan's sister-in-law Mary Ann Higgins, all to avoid suspicion of all his time spent now in Tamaqua,

But the Yost murder remained “unsolved” until Kerrigan confessed to it and another murder in 1876.  McParlan, however, knew of the transaction in the weeks after the Yost murder occurred and reported his findings. But the decision was made by his employer to not reveal all these facts to the authorities to protect its undercover investigation. Moreover, by August McParlan learned that the Yost killing was a trade for the imminent planned killing of John P. Jones of Lansford.  Although McParlan was able to warn Jones, in retrospect, his and their lack of real action caused Jones to lose his life on September 3. The actual perpetrators of that crime were caught in the normal course of policing. It was that first Molly Maguire show trial that was tried without full undercover disclosure.

During the late stages of the Jones trial Kerrigan broke. Locked in solitary confinement, the Tamaquan, became apprehensive and decided to save himself and turned informer. The confession which contained the principal outlines of McParlan’s prior reports of the plans to kill Jones and their relation to Yost's murder in Tamaqua. Now the State/Local authorities could bring that case to trial as they immediately arrested the men implicated by Kerrigan, but they still did not know the presence of undercover agent, McParlan and how he implicated the same men. However, these arrests created a flurry of rumors. Fearing that others involved would leave the area, Coal and Iron Police (acting as the State) rounded up additional men (implicated by McParlan) and beyond Kerrigan's knowledge. Since Kerrigan did not know the men arrested by the second posse, the Molly Maguires could only suspect the existence of a second informer. Shortly thereafter, McParlan disappeared from Schuylkill County until the Yost murder trial.

The Trial

Following the conviction and sentencing of the first two Molly Maguires in Mauch Chunk, attention shifted to Pottsville, where another series of showcase trials was staged in the summer of 1876.The first of these highly publicized proceedings began on May 4, 1876 with James Carroll, Thomas Duffy, James Roarity, Hugh McGehan, and James Boyle facing trial for the murder of Benjamin Yost. James McParlan (in his Pinkerton Reports) and Kerrigan (in his confession) had both linked the Yost killing to the Jones case as quid pro quo to each other.

In the afternoon of Thursday, May 4, 1876, District Attorney Kaercher announced to the court, then in session at Pottsville, that the Commonwealth was ready to proceed in the trial of James Carroll, James Roarity, James Boyle, Hugh McGeehan, and Thomas Duffy, charged with the murder of policeman Benjamin F. Yost on the night of the July 5 and 6, 1875, at Tamaqua. The case was to be tried before a full bench, with Judge Cyrus L, Pershing presiding, with Judges David B. Green and Thomas H. Walker, and Associate Judges Kline and Seitzinger. 

When the case was called the Commonwealth was represented by District Attorney George R. Kaercher, joined with attorneys Hughes, Albright, and Guy E. Farquhar. Attorneys Ryon, Bartholomew, and Kalbfus appeared for the defense. The defendants had agreed to be tried together. The defense was calculating fully on breaking down the testimony of the informer, Kerrigan, and thus, were hopeful.

As in the Jones trials, the jurors were primarily of German extraction. One juror, Levi Stein, admitted, "I don't understand much English"; another, William Becker, asked to be questioned "in Dutch (Deutsch or German) as I am light on English ... I would not understand the witnesses." Both men were accepted as jurors. No juror was Irish. [See Albright, The Great Mollie Maguire Trials, v and Broehl, The Molly Maguires, 296]

After the jury was chosen, on Saturday morning the case was opened by Kaercher. He confirmed that the testimony of James Kerrigan, the accomplice, would be offered, and that a man who for years had lived in the county, associating periodically with these men, and who had learned the history of their crimes, known to them as James McKenna, would also be put upon the witness stand. His name was James McParlan, and he was a detective employed by the Pinkerton Agency, in the employ of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. This was the first public acknowledgment of an undercover plant infiltrating the so-called secret society of Molly Maguires. (It is useful to remember that neither Kerrigan or McParlan testified in the Doyle or Kelly trials. So this would be their coming out party.) [See McParlan's testimony in the Yost trial, Among the Assassins!, 16—17; and, for a fuller account, see his testimony in K.C.K, 92-98. Cf. Pinkerton, The Molly Maguires and the Detectives, 497-508; Dewees, The Molly Maguires, 252-74; Broehl, The Molly Maguires, chapter 11.]

During the Kaercher’s opening speech, Franklin Gowen, the President of the Philadelphia and Reading and himself an attorney, entered the court and took his seat at the counsel-table of the prosecution. Benjamin Franklin, head of the Pinkerton Agency at Philadelphia, entered at the same time, and took his seat close behind the bar. 

The LWC, which had openly shown their position in the Doyle and Kelly prosecutions made no secret of the fact that they had also engaged the private counsel in the present prosecution. The presence of Gowen indicated that not only was his legal ability (he had been the Schuylkill County District Attorney in 1862-1864) to be used on behalf of the Commonwealth, but also that the Railroad, with its vast resources and power, was openly engaged in the contest with the "Molly Maguires." 

In another bit of showmanship, the drama was heightened when, toward the end of Kaercher's opening, ten more “Molly Maguire” prisoners were led past the courthouse in chains to Schuylkill County prison, having just been arrested. They included John Kehoe, the AOH delegate for Schuylkill County and the alleged ringleader. "The news of the latest 'catch' spread through the town like wildfire, gathering in a short time an immense concourse of excited citizens all anxious to learn the details … Poor fools! They imagined themselves sharp and capable of committing any deviltry without being followed—not to mention captured by that justice which sleeps, but never dies." [Shenandoah Herald, May 8, 1876] Now at last, the Herald exulted, the Mollys were about to be "swept from the face of the earth."

Late on Saturday, May 6, just after Kaercher's opening speech, James McParlan entered the Pottsville courtroom for the first time, accompanied by Captain Linden (both a Pinkerton and railroad employee) and two Pinkerton bodyguards. On the first day of his testimony, McParlan described his relation to the Yost case, how he had heard firsthand confessions from Carroll, Roarity, and Kerrigan, and how Duffy was the mastermind behind the whole affair. This evidence, on its own, might have convicted the defendants, but on Monday the prosecution extended its case into a general indictment of the AOH, which McParlan (in retrospect conflated with and) called the "Molly Maguires".

This constant linking of the AOH and the Molly Maguires was an important prosecution strategy, as it attributed the crimes to a large, well-organized society, supporting Gowen’s claims that it was the basis of a major conspiracy. Remarkably, by McParlan’s third day on the stand, even the defense had accepted this admission that the organizations were the same. At one point Bartholomew asked McParlan: “As I understand from your testimony, you were initiated into the Ancient Order of Hibernians or Mollie Maguires, on the 14th day of April, 1874?” [The Daily Miners’ Journal, May 9, 1876] McParlan thus offered minute details of the inner workings of a conspiracy. Much of his testimony was corroborated by the informer Jimmy Kerrigan. [MJ, May 5 to May 18, 1876; Among the Assassins!]

With the prosecution poised for a major conviction, the trial was suddenly disrupted on May 18, when the aforementioned Levi Stein, one of the German-speaking jurors fell ill. The case was suspended, and when Stein died on May 25, the judge dismissed the jury and declared a mistrial. 

The setback for the prosecution was temporary.  There was little doubt in anybody's mind that the testimony offered by McParlan and Kerrigan had doomed the five defendants. All that was needed was to arrange a new trial. In the meantime, the defendants in the Yost case were remanded in custody. 

That new trial took place between July 6 and 22 and resulted in the expected guilty verdict for four of the five defendants. Duffy requested and was granted a separate trial, which was held in September.  He was likewise convicted.