Alexander Campbell (c. 1833 – June 21, 1877) was a tavern owner, who, with three other convicted

Molly Maguires The Molly Maguires were an Irish 19th-century secret society active in Ireland, Liverpool and parts of the Eastern United States, best known for their activism among Irish-American and Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania. After a serie ...

, was

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in ...

for the murders of two mine operatives. Campbell proclaimed his innocence to the end, and in doing so, slapped a muddy handprint on the

wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or, is decorative. There are many kinds of walls, including: * Walls in buildings that form a fundamental part of the supe ...

of his

prison cell A prison cell (also known as a jail cell) is a small room in a prison or police station where a prisoner is held. Cells greatly vary by their furnishings, hygienic services, and cleanliness, both across countries and based on the level of punishm ...

, declaring the mark would remain forever as a sign of his innocence. Legend has it that despite many attempts to remove it, including building a new wall, the mark still remains today.

Life

Campbell was born in

Dungloe ''An Clochán Liath'', known in English as Dungloe or Dunglow ( ), is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is the main town in The Rosses and the largest in the Donegal ''Gaeltacht''. Dungloe developed as a town in the middle of the 18th century ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

around 1833. In 1868, he emigrated to the United States, where he began operating a

tavern A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that h ...

in the eastern Pennsylvania town of Tamaqua. Campbell later moved to Storm Hill in Lansford, where he served as a recruiter for the

Ancient Order of Hibernians The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH; ) is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be male, Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New ...

. He became a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

owner, and

liquor Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard ...

distributor, and was allegedly a member of the Mollies. This was a term used in the Pennsylvanian

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

counties Carbon and Schuylkill by miners, mainly Irish

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

s, to describe those who took part in organized

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

s and violently resisted

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

Crime and punishment

The Molly Maguires were generally seen, outside their circle of supporters, as murderers,

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

s, and foreign

agitators The Agitators were a political movement as well as elected representatives of soldiers, including members of the New Model Army under Lord General Fairfax, during the English Civil War. They were also known as ''adjutators''. Many of the ideas o ...

. In 1877, along with three other men (Michael Doyle, John Donahue and Edward Kelly), Campbell was convicted of the murders of John P. Jones and Morgan Powell, but he admitted to only being an accessory. Evidence collected was presented by a single detective from the

Pinkerton Agency Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinkerton ...

. The convicts were taken to

Carbon County Jail The Carbon County Jail is a historic jail located in Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania. History The jail was built in 1869–1870 by Harry Bowman (under architect Edward Haviland) and is a two-story, fortress-like rusticated stone building. ...

, and Campbell was assigned to cell #17. For days they were forced to listen to the noise made whilst the

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

were being built, outside in the

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

. On the morning of execution, the courtyard was packed with people. The convicts kept their dignity, but when the guards went to fetch Campbell, he tried one last time to proclaim his innocence. When they refused to let him go, he put his hand in the dirt, and marked the wall with it, stating the mark would remain forever as a sign of his innocence. All four men were then hanged.

The handprint

The handprint Campbell left is still there today, although the wall has been washed, painted over, and, according to some versions, even knocked down and replaced. A forensic scientist who examined the handprint with infrared photography in the 1990s concluded that it had never been painted over, and stated that the history of Campbell's execution suggests a right hand print on the wall, rather than the left hand print that is currently visible. The prison is listed on the National Register of Historic labor conflicts.

Pennsylvania legislature

Both branches of the Pennsylvania legislature have passed resolutions (House Resolution No. 527, Session of 2005, and Senate Resolution No. 235 Session of 2006) asserting that the trial of Campbell and the three other accused Molly Maguires was "inherently unconstitutional."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Alexander 1830s births 1877 deaths 1877 murders in the United States Drinking establishment owners 19th-century executions of American people People executed by Pennsylvania by hanging People executed for murder Executed Irish people 19th-century executions by the United States People convicted of murder by Pennsylvania American people convicted of murder Date of birth unknown People from Dungloe Irish emigrants (before 1923) to the United States