Book - Ghosts of the Molly Maguires

For over a decade,unsuspecting visitors to the Old Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe, PA have reported unusual experiences within the walls of this jail-turned-museum. Ghosts of the Molly Maguires is a compilation of these first hand reports. Through these accounts, readers can wander the Old Jail's cold hallways, past Cell 17 with its mysterious handprint on the wall, under the gallows on which seven of the accused Molly Maguires were put to death, and down into the eerie dungeon where eve the jail;s guides won't venture after dark.  Along with these tails from the jail, readers will learn the history of the Old Jail and its most famous inmates: the Molly Maguires.

By Betty Lou McBride and Kathleen McBride Sisack (my mom and sister)

Soft Cover 128 pgs

from Ghosts of the Molly Maguires, pages 32 & 33...

September 1995
“It’s like having a roller coaster in my stomach,” said a young girl from Mahanoy City School in Mahanoy City, PA, about 
her feelings during her tour.  None of her schoolmates had felt anything strange during this same tour.

September 1995
One day a Catholic priest and his sister who live near Bethlehem, PA, visited and we chatted with them for a while.  We 
then walked with them into the cell block where they both stopped abruptly as they “hit a wall of air.”  With seemingly great 
difficulty, they continued to walk around the cell block, blessing themselves many times.  A short time later the sister felt 
weak and needed to be helped to a chair.  Both the priest and his sister felt what they described as “depression and 
sadness” throughout the building.

September 9, 1995
As two college students walked to the back of the cell block, they had “unearthly feelings” such as they had never felt 
before.  They had no idea what caused these feelings—feelings each student described  
as “freaky.”

1998
Alicia stopped her tour just outside the door to the cell block to check that the previous tour group had moved on from the 
cell block. She pulled open the door to glance inside, and as she did, a young girl on her tour looked past her to the 
gallows at the far end and quietly asked, “Why are there four men hanging up there?”  Startled, Alicia quickly turned to 
look at the gallows, but there was no one on the gallows.

May 2, 1998
“Help me, help me,” a young girl heard a woman call to her in the cell block.  The girl did not appear to be frightened, just 
surprised, as she asked us about the woman.  When we told her that there was no woman there, the young girl insisted 
that the woman had long blond hair and a very white face.  She said the woman was not doing anything special; she was 
just speaking to her.  This young girl would not believe us when we told her again that there was no woman.

July 1998
Kathleen and her husband, from California, stopped in the gift shop to bring us proof of their strange adventure.  
Kathleen, her husband and her mother had been on a tour a few weeks earlier and had taken photos throughout the jail.  
She told us they had taken a picture of her mother standing in front of the first picnic table in the main cell block.  When 
the photograph was developed they received a great surprise.  Everything was in the photograph—except the mother!  
There was a white space in the photograph where the mother should have been.  It appeared as if she had been just cut 
out of the picture.  They assured us that this was the way the photo had come back from the developer, and they had 
done nothing to alter or enhance the image.  (See the picture on the opposite page.)