James McParland (né McParlan; 22 March 1844 – 18 May 1919) was an Irish-American private detective and Pinkerton agent.
McParland arrived in New York in 1867. He worked as a laborer, policeman and then in Chicago as a liquor store owner until the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed his business. He then became a private detective and labor spy, noted for his success against coal mining labor organizations in Pennsylvania.
Infiltration of the Molly Maguires McParland first came to national attention when, as an undercover operative using the name James McKenna, he infiltrated and helped to dismantle an organization of activist Pennsylvania coal miners called the Molly Maguires. During the 1870s, miners in the region of the anthracite mines lived a life of "bitter, terrible struggle." Wages were low, working conditions were atrocious, and deaths and serious injuries numbered in the hundreds each year. Conditions were certainly ripe for labor unrest:
Labor angrily watched "railway directors (riding) about the country in luxurious private cars proclaiming their inability to pay living wages to hungry working men."
The Molly Maguires were Irish Catholic when there was frequent prejudice against such persons. It was a time of rampant beatings and murders in mining districts, some committed by the Mollies. Franklin B. Gowen, the President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, "the wealthiest anthracite coal mine owner in the world", hired Allan Pinkerton's services to deal with the Molly Maguires. Pinkerton assigned McParland to the job. McParland successfully infiltrated the secret organization, becoming a secretary for one of its local groups. McParland turned in reports daily, eventually collecting evidence of murder plots and intrigue, passing this information along to Benjamin Franklin, his Pinkerton manager. He also began working secretly with Robert Linden, a Pinkerton agent assigned to the Coal and Iron Police for the purpose of coordinating the eventual arrest and prosecution of members of the Molly Maguires.
On 10 December 1876, three men and two women with Molly connections were attacked in their house by masked men. One woman in the house, wife of one of the Molly Maguires, was taken outside and shot dead. McParland was outraged that the information he had been providing had found its way into the hands of killers. McParland protested in a letter to his Pinkerton overseer which declared, in part:
Now I wake up this morning to find that I am the murderer of Mrs. McAlister. What had a woman to do with the case – did the [Molly Maguires] in their worst time shoot down women. If I was not here the Vigilante Committee would not know who was guilty and when I find them shooting women in their thirst for blood I hereby tender my resignation to take effect as soon as this message is received. It is not cowardice that makes me resign but just let them have it now I will no longer interfere as I see that one is the same as the other and I am not going to be an accessory to the murder of women and children. I am sure the [Molly Maguires] will not spare the women so long as the Vigilante has shown an example.
McParland was prevailed upon not to resign. Frank Winrich, a first lieutenant with the Pennsylvania State Militia, was arrested as the leader of the attackers, but was released on bail. Then another Molly Maguire, Hugh McGehan, a 21-year-old who had been secretly identified as a killer by McParland, was fired upon and wounded by unknown assailants. Later, the McGehans' home was attacked by gunfire.
Eventually enough evidence was collected on reprisal killings and assassinations that arrests could be made and, based primarily on McParland's testimony, ten Molly Maguires were sent to the gallows. Some writers declare unequivocally that justice was done. Others have argued that,
... punishment had gone too far, and that the guilt of some of the condemned was that of association more than participation and but half established by other condemned men seeking clemency for themselves.
Joseph G. Rayback, author of A History of American Labor, has observed:
The charge has been made that the Molly Maguires episode was deliberately manufactured by the coal operators with the express purpose of destroying all vestiges of unionism in the area ... There is some evidence to support the charge ... the "crime wave" that appeared in the anthracite fields came after the appearance of the Pinkertons, and ... many of the victims of the crimes were union leaders and ordinary miners. The evidence brought against [the defendants], supplied by James McParlan, a Pinkerton, and corroborated by men who were granted immunity for their own crimes, was tortuous and contradictory, but the net effect was damning ... The trial temporarily destroyed the last vestiges of labor unionism in the anthracite area. More important, it gave the public the impression ... that miners were by nature criminal in character ...A History of American Labor by Joseph G. Rayback, 1966, p. 133.
The Valley of Fear: McParland "meets" Holmes Reports of McParland's success against the Molly Maguires came to the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes detective fiction. Conan Doyle wrote McParland into The Valley of Fear, creating an encounter between the fictional Sherlock Holmes, and a character whose history loosely recalled McParland's experiences with the Molly Maguires.
Conan Doyle had met Allan Pinkerton on an ocean voyage, where the writer became fascinated by the "singular and terrible narrative" of the Molly Maguires. Later, however, "Allan Pinkerton's and Arthur Conan Doyle's friendship ended over the rendition of some Pinkerton exploits in fictional form ..."The Eye That Never Sleeps, A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency by Frank Morn, 1982, p. 176 Patrick Campbell, a relative of one of the executed Mollies, who wrote A Molly Maguire Story, learned from a McParland relative that McParland's two brothers, Edward and Charles, also went undercover against the Mollies. Campbell speculates that the break between Pinkerton and Conan Doyle may have resulted because,
[The McParland character in The Valley of Fear] was portrayed as being very wealthy [suggesting a possible 'pay off' ... and] Pinkerton did not like the fact that [the McParland character] was characterized in the novel as having married a German girl from [the anthracite fields ...] Brother Charles had actually married the German girl, not James, but Pinkerton must have disliked how close the novel was getting to the truth.
Knights of Labor Railway Strike of 1886 During the Knights of Labor Railway Strike of 1886, McParland worked undercover in Parsons, Kansas for railroad tycoon Jay Gould. McParland was accused of joining in criminal activity with Jacob McLaughlin of the notorious Grand Central Hotel near the railroad yards. Writer Anthony Lukas recorded that:
For years, its staff had preyed on visitors – notably Texas cattlemen who, having driven their herds up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene returned through Parsons with bulging pockets. The hotel provided everything the footloose cowboy or railway man might require: liquor, drugs, gambling, and prostitutes. But once a man had savored those delights, he was likely to find his pockets picked, his horse stolen. If a guest proved recalcitrant, he was chloroformed, butchered, then buried in the basement or thrown in the Neosho River.
McLaughlin and an associate, Wash Bercaw, spent time in the county jail for liquor violations. They reportedly murdered a cellmate by the name of Frank P. Myers (or Myres), a horse thief who had overheard them in the jail, by drowning him in the river. The two were charged with the murder just as troopers brought the strike under control. But the witnesses to the murder changed their stories, apparently due to behind-the-scenes operations by McParland. The witnesses admitted they had been bribed, and went to jail for perjury. E.C. Ward, McLauglin's lawyer, who had offered the bribes, was disbarred. McLaughlin walked free, and many in the community – judges, lawyers, and merchants – apparently shared the view that the perjured testimony was somehow McParland's doing. A meeting chaired by a local Socialist denounced the "infamous" detective. A statement was issued stating that when money could be made,
... he will do anything, no matter how low or vile, to accomplish his purpose ... There is not today, in the United States outside prison walls, a more conscienceless and desperate criminal than McParland.
Lukas wrote: "What lay behind these accusations is difficult to say," and that it is "hard to imagine" how McParland became associated with "a scoundrel like McLaughlin," but "if the story is accurate," he speculated that the connection must have resulted from activities relating to the strike.
Historian and McParland biographer Beau Riffenburgh wrote that McParland's supposed connection with McLaughlin was the invention of sensational journalist George Shoaf and two colleagues at the Kansas socialist publication Appeal to Reason. Shoaf hated McParland passionately for working undercover in the employ of rich capitalists, and launched an "all-out smear campaign" connecting McParland with McLaughlin. Riffenburgh noted that following McLaughlin's trial, two witnesses were convicted of perjury and McLaughlin's lawyer was disbarred, but the report of the three-member commission appointed by the court to investigate the perjury contained no mention of McParland. Riffenburgh concluded:
In a series of outrageous yarns, Shoaf created a story of McParland's involvement at McLaughlin's Grand Central Hotel including cleverly expanding their supposed relationship to include more illegal and immoral activities by McParland. Unfortunately, even though there is no indication of truth in Shoaf's stories, they have occasionally been accepted as accurate.Beau Riffenburgh, Pinkerton's Great Detective (New York: Penguin, 2013) 174-177.
More than two decades later, McParland would be interrogated about his time in Parsons while under cross-examination by attorney Edmund Richardson. This occurred during the first of three murder trials of Steve Adams, this one taking place in Wallace, Idaho. Immediately after the questioning, the attorney and the detective had a verbal confrontation in the courtroom. An Associated Press writer wrote that spectators cheered the attorney, and hissed McParland. The detective later argued that the newspaper reporter must have been bribed to write such a story.
Criminal detection In Columbus, Kansas, McParland discovered a conspiracy to dynamite Cherokee County's records vault to hide fraudulent mortgages. McParland helped convict train robber Oliver Curtis Perry. He helped to apprehend a criminal who committed the largest bullion theft in U.S. history – $320,000 in gold from a San Francisco smelting company.
McParland in Colorado In 1885, the Thiel Detective Agency opened an office in Denver. Allan Pinkerton, who had died two years earlier, left the Pinkerton Detective Agency to his sons. The brothers opened their fourth office in Denver in order to compete with Thiel. They assigned Charles O. Eames to head the Denver office. When it appeared that Eames was running the western branch dishonestly, they assigned McParland to investigate. McParland discovered extensive abuses against clients and against the agency, and reported on them. Everyone was fired except for McParland and Charlie Siringo.