Site of the 1877 Molly Maguires executions — the largest mass hanging in Pennsylvania history
Second and Norwegian Streets, Pottsville, PA 17901
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Active prison — exterior viewing only; Schuylkill County Historical Society walking tours are ticketed (see website for pricing)
Access
Wheelchair OK
Street-level exterior viewing; walking tour covers Pottsville historic district sidewalks
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1851 · Molly Maguires Executions 1877 · Pennsylvania Labor History · Anthracite Coal Region · Largest Mass Execution in PA History · Pinkerton Detective Agency Role
Schuylkill County Prison opened in 1851 on a hillside site at Second and Norwegian Streets in Pottsville, the county seat and commercial hub of Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region. The building's architect gave it deliberately imposing Gothic battlements, a design choice common to mid-19th-century American penal institutions: the visible bulk of the structure was meant to communicate state authority to the working-class population of the surrounding mining towns.
The facility's most consequential day was June 21, 1877, a date remembered in the coal region as Black Thursday. Six men — John Donahue, Thomas Duffy, James Carroll, James Roarity, Hugh McGeehan, and James Boyle — were hanged simultaneously in the prison yard. All six were alleged members of the Molly Maguires, a secret organization of Irish Catholic miners accused in a series of murders of mining company officials and supervisors. On the same morning, four more men were hanged at the Carbon County Prison in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe). Taken together, the ten simultaneous executions constituted the largest mass hanging in Pennsylvania history.
The legal proceedings that produced these convictions were later subjected to sustained historical scrutiny. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency supplied the prosecution's key witness, an operative named James McParland who had infiltrated the miners' organization. A judge reviewing the case decades later characterized the proceedings as a surrender of state sovereignty to private corporate interests — specifically, to the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company and its president Franklin B. Gowen, who personally prosecuted several of the cases. Twenty men in total connected to the Molly Maguires were executed in Carbon and Schuylkill County prisons between 1877 and 1879.
The Schuylkill County Prison has operated continuously since 1851 and remains an active correctional facility. The Schuylkill County Historical Society, located nearby at 305 North Centre Street, maintains records and artifacts related to the Molly Maguires trials and conducts seasonal walking tours of the Pottsville Historic District that incorporate the prison's documented history.
Sources
The Molly Maguires, in the decades following their executions, became labor martyrs in the anthracite coal communities of eastern Pennsylvania. Several of the condemned men made explicit statements of innocence from the scaffold. Jack Kehoe, hanged in 1878 and often identified as the organization's leader, was posthumously pardoned by the Governor of Pennsylvania in 1979 — over a century after his death.
This documented history of contested conviction underlies the paranormal tradition that has accumulated around the Schuylkill County Prison site. Guides on the Pottsville Haunted History Walking Tour recount reports from individuals who have stood near the prison exterior and experienced a pronounced atmospheric unease — cold air that does not track weather conditions, the sense of being observed, and occasional reports of a low sound interpreted as distant voices.
The most specific documented account involves the section of the prison yard believed to correspond to the 1877 execution site. Multiple investigators conducting informal surveys of the exterior have reported an apparent temperature differential along that wall during evening hours. These accounts are anecdotal and have not been subjected to controlled investigation.
The Pottsville Historical Society does not frame the tours as ghost hunts; the walking tour's primary emphasis is on documented labor history, the role of corporate interests in the Molly Maguires prosecutions, and the broader story of Irish immigrant workers in the anthracite region. The paranormal framing operates as a secondary layer over that substantive history.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The castle-like facade of Schuylkill County Prison rises over Second and Norwegian Streets in downtown Pottsville. The building's Gothic battlements were deliberately designed to project state power and deterrence — a common 19th-century penal architecture strategy. Visitors can photograph the exterior and access the surrounding historic district on foot.
The Schuylkill County Historical Society leads seasonal haunted history walking tours of the Pottsville Historic District that incorporate the prison's documented role in the Molly Maguires executions and broader coal-region labor history. Check the Historical Society's events calendar for current scheduling and ticket availability.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Joliet, IL
The Old Joliet Prison opened May 22, 1858, when fifty-three inmates arrived at a small structure to begin building the larger penitentiary around themselves. Designed by Chicago architect William W. Boyington and constructed of limestone quarried on-site, it operated until 2002 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
Jim Thorpe, PA
The Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania occupies the former Carbon County Jail, built in 1871 by architect Edward Haviland and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Seven men convicted as Molly Maguires were hanged here in 1877, and the building remained an active jail until 1995.
Edenton, NC
Completed in 1825, the Chowan County Jail served the county seat of Edenton, North Carolina for 150 years. At various points documented as the oldest active jail in the United States, it imprisoned 21 Black men in the collective fear following Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion in Virginia, and held family members of Harriet Jacobs — the enslaved author whose 1861 memoir 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl' documented their incarceration. The building is now a museum operated by the Edenton Historical Commission.