Should we research our distant cousins? If so, how far removed do we go? My Chicago cousins never stop giving me fodder to dig up. My distant German cousins boast a countess. My Italian cousins far removed in the 1800s reveal tangled webs of inter-marriage among my lines, many more midwives, and premature deaths due to war or murder. It was one of those types of death I found while researching my nephew’s German Pennsylvanian ancestry in the coal regions that sent me on a research flurry last year.
My nephew is a Hesser descendant. Specifically, a descendant of Germantown, Pennsylvania born Frederick Hesser, a member of the militia during the Revolutionary War. Frederick had several sons. My nephew’s 5th great grandfather was his son Jacob. Jacob had a brother also named Frederick who was famous in Schuylkill County during his lifetime because he was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and was George Washington’s drummer boy.
So I started searching newspaper articles on the former drummer boy in Pennsylvania and stumbled on a slew of articles referencing the murder of a man also named Frederick Hesser and the murder trial of accused Molly Maguire Peter McManus. Of course I could not stop there. Sure enough, the murdered Frederick was the son of former drummer boy Frederick, and is the 1st cousin, 6 times removed to my nephew. Peter McManus was the last accused Molly Maguire hung in Pennsylvania.
Frederick was the elected Coroner of Northumberland County, and as such, was in charge of leading investigations into the murders of James Mahan and John Keating. The latter died during a quarrel with Thomas Gribbons in 1874. It was Frederick Hesser’s testimony in 1874 that directly led to the conviction of Thomas Gribbons.
On the evening of December 19, 1874, while working as a night watchman at the Hickory Swamp Colliery near Shamokin, Frederick was beaten to death with a club and hammer. While his murder was said to be a reprisal for the Gribbons conviction, and Peter McManus could name the look-outs, he consistently denied being his murderer. His accomplice John O’Neill received a death sentence but was given a 30 day stay by Governor Hoyt. A priest intervened on O’Neill’s behalf and got his sentence overturned to life imprisonment. He died in Eastern State Penitentiary in 1882.
On the day Peter McManus was hung in Sunbury – October 10, 1879 – his signed confessions were published in Northumberland County newspapers. He confessed to blowing up the Big Mountain Bridge and the burning of the Excelsior Telegraph Depot as well as planning burnings of breakers. But not to murder.
My sources for information on the McManus trial came from the many articles I found on newspapers.com, Pennsylvania Senate Resolution 236 of 2006, found here, and an online publication on Northumberland County History written in 2001 by Katherine Jaeger – The Molly Maguires of Northumberland County. It can be found here and includes much more detailed information on the aforementioned individuals.
If you are familiar with the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania, Peter McManus was not among the list of the accused Mollies pardoned posthumously.
Living in this state myself, we all seem to know someone that claims members of the Mollies in their ancestry. Talking to the ones I know, they all seem to have differing opinions on the Mollies, the prosecutions carried out Pinkerton agents, the wealthy mining company owners, the thuggery of the Coal and Iron Police, and the newspaper writers from those days. Please see the Senate Resolution I referenced above. Those men did not receive un-biased due process.
You never know what you are going to find when researching collateral lines and cousins.
Do you have any corrections, additions, or any other comments, please email me: cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.
Cinziarosa's Descendants (c) 