Franklin B. Gowen, the President of the…

Franklin B. Gowen, the President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company and "the wealthiest anthracite coal mine owner in the world", hired Allan Pinkerton's services to deal with the Molly Maguires.

F.P. Dewees, a contemporary and a confidant of Frankilin B.Gowen, wrote that by 1873 "Mr. Gowen was fully impressed with the necessity of lessening the overgrown power of the 'Labor Union' and exterminating if possible the Molly Maguires."

Pinkerton had selected James McParland, a native of County Armagh, to go undercover against the Mollies.

Using the alias of James McKenna, he had made Shenandoah his headquarters and claimed to have became a trusted member of the organization.

McParland's assignment was to collect evidence of murder plots and intrigue, passing this information along to his Pinkerton manager.

He also began working secretly with a Pinkerton agent assigned to the Coal and Iron Police for the purpose of coordinating the eventual arrest and prosecution of members of the Molly Maguires.

Although there had been several murders between 1863 and 1867 progress in the investigations was slow. (Boyer and Morais, p.51.)

There was "a lull in the entire area, broken only by minor shootings".

McParland wrote: I am sick and tired of this thing.

I seem to make no progress.” (Horan, James David. The Pinkerton Story, Putnam (1951) p. 151.)

The union has grown powerful; thirty thousand members—eighty-five percent of Pennsylvania's anthracite miners—have joined, but Gowen has built a combination of his own, bringing all of the mine operators into an employers' association known as the Anthracite Board of Trade.

In addition to the railroad, Gowen owns two-thirds of the coal mines in southeastern Pennsylvania.

He is a risk-taker and an ambitious man.