This sketch of the Emerald House at Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania appeared in an 1870s book about the Molly Maguires published by Allan Pinkerton, the head of the infamous detective agency that infiltrated the group of Irish immigrants in the Coal Region.
The narrative takes us inside the hotel, operated by Michael Clark, and gives us the description common to a small hotel and barroom in Schuylkill County in the decade after the Civil War:
The detective was early at Mahanoy City, and in joining his brethren at the Emerald House, Michael Clark proprietor. This man Clark… was not a Mollie Maguire, but his two sons belonged to the order.
The hotel was a two-story, basement and attic affair, the outside painted brown, with the eaves and two dormer-windows facing the main street of the city. The first floor front was lighted by large show windows, for which there were no shades or screens to veil the array of bottles and decanters behind the bar, or the men there congregating to enjoy their liquor.
There was a door at the center, giving entrance to the saloon and bar, and another at the side by which the upper apartments were reached without troubling other inmates. In the rear of the public room was, first, a long dining-hall common to such places, and then the kitchen.
All were very plainly furnished. At the end of the lot was the bank of the river [Mahanoy Creek, at the back of the building]. Upstairs, in the front part of the house, was one spacious, well-lighted apartment, carpeted and decently stocked with furniture, in which meetings were held, and it was lighted, by day, with four windows.
Back of this were bedrooms. On the garret floor were also a number of sleeping apartments…
It was in this building that Pinkerton detective James McParland alleged that the murder of Billy “Bull” Thomas was planned by members of the Molly Maguires. Despite being shot multiple times, Thomas survived the assassination attempt.
The building still stands today, though significantly altered from its 1870s appearance, at 324-326 West Centre Street in Mahanoy City.
Read more about the Molly Maguires
“The hour of doom” – The Molly Maguire executions in Pottsville on June 21, 1877
A letter in defense of the Molly Maguires | 1877
Alexander Campbell | From the shores of Ireland to a gallows in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region
“The Mollies’ Wake” – Alexander Campbell’s wake and funeral in June 1877
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