In the summer of 1864, Gilliard Dock moved his family from Harrisburg to rural Tremont Township, Schuylkill County. Entrusted by New England investors to launch a mining operation where previous collieries had failed, Dock arrived at a time when business was booming, driven by the industrial demands of the Union war effort in the Civil War.

Dock, an experienced manager of machine shops and other industrial ventures, recorded in his personal journal a pervasive feeling of unease about life in the isolated surroundings of western Schuylkill County. His apprehensions stemmed from multiple reports of violence against mine managers throughout the lower anthracite coal fields in 1863 and 1864.

A year earlier, in November 1863, masked men attacked and brutally murdered a mine engineer – George K. Smith – in a rural mining village in Carbon County.

Incidents like these, combined with rumors of threat against mine management and Dock’s own experiences in western Schuylkill County, contributed to the journal entry he wrote on September 25, 1864:

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I feel satisfied that a country life would not suit us; we have become to much accustomed to the many comforts and conveniences of town life to feel satisfied with the isolation of country life.

The church, the school and the post office – who values them more than those who are for a time deprived of them. A country home – or a suburban residence near a town – with convenient access, would probably be pleasantest, but I confess I am already tired of the loneliness of our present residence.

The knowledge too that a savage and lawless population is not far off – detracts front the pleasure of country life – and a feeling of vague uneasiness will steal into my musings.

Danger that can be faced – I do not fear. I would confront a dozen of Irish in daylight if around, but the dangers of the night, the lurking devils who burn and destroy – who track a man like hounds, howling for his life, these dangers cannot be guarded against.

My life has already been threatened by some of the Irish who work at and control the mines in our vicinity, because I will employ none of them. I will not have any of them about the works.

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Businessmen and journalists, most notably Benjamin Bannan of the Miners’ Journal of Pottsville, placed the blame for violence against mine management squarely on the shoulders of a shadowy group they called “The Molly Maguires.”

They also blamed Irish immigrant workers for the increasing number of strikes and walkouts that grew more frequent amid an influx of investment and money that poured into the Coal Region during the Civil War.

Actual violence against mine managers often erupted from localized disputes in isolated pockets of the region, frequently triggered by bigotry against Irish mineworkers – like Dock’s own words suggest.

Labor organizing, however, was becoming increasingly prevalent in Schuylkill County by 1864.

Only four years later, in 1868, mineworkers in Schuylkill County formed one of the first successful, large-scale labor unions known as the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association. Its leader, John Siney, was an Irish immigrant who arrived in Schuylkill County in 1863.

Gilliard Dock later became the superintendent of mines at Bear Gap, Wiconisco Township in the years after the Civil War.

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Read more about Irish mineworkers and labor violence in Civil War-era Schuylkill County

“Troubles in our Coal Mines” – Editorial about using soldiers to quell labor organizing in the Coal Region | 1863

“Revolutionary Disloyalty” – A coal miners’ rebellion in Schuylkill County during the Civil War

A racist conspiracy theory found root in Schuylkill County in 1862

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