In 1860 and 1870 the United States was filled with horrible labor unrest.Working conditions in the Pennsylvania coal mines were terrible - one long, hazardous day's work paid an average of fifty cents - and the mostly Irish-immigrant miners were frequently at odds with their bosses, most of whom were of English and Welsh descent.
To fight the mine owners the was a group of activists called the Mollie Maguires. The Molly Maguires held the first strike in the United States against the mine owners, but they didn't stop there. They incited riots, which ended up killing about 150 people.
The owners bought the services of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which placed undercover agent James McParlen in the ranks of the Mollies. Mcpharlen's testimony ended up sending twelve men to the gallows.In 1877 "Yellow Jack" Donohue was convicted of the murder of a foreman of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. Three other men were sentenced to hang as well for the murder of another mine foreman. Two of these men went stoically to their deaths. But Alexander Campbell swore he was innocent.
Campbell, still declaring his innocence, had to be dragged out of his first florr cell. But right before he left he made sure to leave his mark. He rubbed his left hand in the dust on the floor, and pressed his palm against the wall. As he did this he announced, "This handprint will remain here for all time as proof of my innocence," he shouted. He repeated this vow over and over again as he was led struggling to the gallows, where after the trap was sprung he took fourteen minutes to die by strangulation. His handprint reamianed after his death.
In 1930, when Robert L. Bowman was elected sheriff of Carbon County, he vowed to remove the handprint, which was becoming taken as proof of a terrible injustice in the county's history. In December 1931 a work crew came to cell 17 and removed the section of plaster wall containing the handprint, replacing it with a new wall of fresh plaster. The following morning the sheriff entered the cell, where he was horrified to see the faint outline of a hand in the still-moist plaster. By evening a black handprint was fully visible. Although the cell is now kept locked and is opened only to an occasional visitor, the handprint remains there to this day. As late as 1978 a private citizen who sneaked into the cell tried to paint over it, only to have the print reappear minutes later in the fresh paint.
Back to the Main Page
