The belief in ghosts is as old as civilization itself.

Ghosts and stories about ghosts appear everywhere from the Bible to prime time television.

Today most sightings are explained as either natural phenomena, a person’s imagination or perhaps our hope that life is somehow eternal. But every so often either a story or a sighting of a ghost leaves you wondering, “What if?”

After reading this local “what if” story, you can decide for yourself.

John P. Jones and Alex Campbell

John P. Jones emigrated from Wales to America in 1852. An experienced miner in Wales, Jones landed in New York and eventually made his way to the coal fields around present-day Ashland, where he found work in a local coal mine.

In 1860 Jones traded his pick and shovel for a map of the California gold fields and a sluice pan. Jones would return to the coal fields a few years later, broke and in debt.

Jones soon found work with the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company in Ashton, which would later be named Lansford.

Jones was described as a proficient miner who quickly rose through the ranks of the L.N.C. Company.

In 1872 the Lehigh Navigation Company leased the coal fields within the Panther Valley to the Wilkes-Barre Coal Company. The company then became known as the Lehigh Wilkes-Barre Coal Company or L.W.S.B.

Jones was immediately promoted to superintendent of the No. 4 mine near present-day Andrewsville.

By all accounts Jones was considered a man of even temperament who neither smoked nor drank. He and his wife had seven children. The entire family attended services regularly at the Welsh Church on West Abbott Street.

The Jones family enjoyed a nearly idyllic life as far as was possible living in the Pennsylvania coal fields of the 1870s, however the Jones’ family life would change forever when Jones and Alex Campbell crossed paths in late 1870.

Campbell immigrated to America from Dungloe, Ireland, in 1868, first landing in New York. Campbell made his way to the coal fields of Schuylkill County and eventually to the Number 4 Mine in Ashton.

Beginning of the end

According to various accounts, in 1869 Campbell and Jones had a heated argument either over Campbell requesting to be allowed to mine coal along the breast of the mine or Campbell wanting his own mule and mule boy assigned to him to haul the coal he mined to the surface.

Jones refused both requests. Campbell then accused Jones of assigning the best jobs in the mine to the Welsh miners while assigning the worst jobs to the Irish miners. Jones immediately fired Campbell, then blacklisted him as a troublemaker. Campbell then and there swore vengeance against Jones.

Shortly after being fired by Jones, Campbell opened the American hotel in Tamaqua, possibly with money fronted to him by Jack Kehoe, who was head of the Molly Maguires in Schuylkill County.

The Molly Maguires

Kehoe at the time operated the Hibernian House in Girardville. It is believed it was at this time that Campbell joined the Molly Maguires.

In 1872 Campbell sold his Tamaqua saloon and moved to the Storm Hill section of Ashton, where he purchased the building at what is now 314 W. Ridge St. in Lansford.

Campbell’s new headquarters, replete with its cupola, suited Campbell’s plans both for his business and his long-awaited vengeance against Jones.

From what became known as Campbell House, Campbell ran a small wholesale liquor business, selling liquor to other saloons mostly operated by other members of the Molly Maguires. On the first floor Campbell ran a successful saloon, renting rooms on the second floor as a boarding house. Campbell’s favorite part of his new headquarters was its cupola, from which he could watch the activities of Jones, who lived a few houses away on Bertsch Street.

Campbell successfully recruited at least 12 miners to join the Mollies, the majority of which worked in the Number 9 Breaker which sat across the street from the Number 9 Mine and the Number 5 mine, located south of present-day Andrewsville. Campbell then became what was known as a bodymaster of the Ashton Chapter of the Mollies.

In the summer of 1875, from within the confines of Campbell’s new headquarters, the Mollies plotted the murder of Tamaqua Police Officer Benjamin Yost. The three Yost assassins: James Boyle of Ashton, Hugh McGehan of Summit Hill and James Roarity of Coaldale were personally picked by Campbell to carry out the Yost murder.

Revenge

Following the shooting of Yost on July 14, 1875, Campbell planned to exact his long-awaited revenge against Jones.

To return the favor of Campbell supplying the assassins for the murder of Yost, the Schuylkill Chapter of the Mollie Maguires supplied Michael Doyle and Edward Kelly, both of Mount Laflee, along with James “Powder Keg” Kerrigan of Tamaqua to carry out Campbell’s long-awaited revenge against Jones.

On the morning of Sept. 3, 1875, Kelly, Doyle and Kerrigan waited behind a bush across the street from the Jones house at 237 W. Bertsch St. Shortly after 5 a.m. Jones had breakfast and prepared to leave for the mine. Just before leaving, Jones slid a .32-caliber black powder revolver into his right pants pocket. For reasons still unknown, the Coal and Iron police officer assigned to protect Jones was either called off by the coal company or did not show up to accompany Jones on his trip to the mine office.

At 6:30 a.m., Jones said goodbye to his wife and left by the back door.

Jones walked north on what would become Sharpe Street, then made a right on present-day Ridge Street, then known as Bridge Street, walking toward Klocks Hill, his assassins walking a short distance behind him. As Jones descended Klocks Hill, he stopped and turned to face his future killers. Jones continued walking down Klocks Hill at the intersection with the railroad tracks, turned right and headed toward the telegraph office.

Jones entered the telegraph office, said good morning to several people within the telegraph office, and shortly after 7 a.m. Jones stepped out of the office and into eternity.

Campbell’s long-sworn revenge against Jones was over in seconds. As Jones exited the office, Kelly and Doyle stepped between Jones and the door to the office, blocking Jones’ only chance for refuge.

The pair called out Jones’ name. As he turned, Jones spotted their weapons and began to reach for the revolver in his right pocket. Kelly struck first, firing his own .32-caliber pistol at Jones, his first shot smashing through Jones’ right elbow, rendering his arm useless.

As Jones stood there unable to defend himself, Doyle fired his .44 Colt at nearly point-blank range at Jones. His first shot hit Jones in the left side of his chest with full effect, the impact causing Jones to spin to his left as he fell toward earth. The two assassins then emptied their pistols at Jones as he lay on the ground, striking him three times. The entire episode was witnessed by several coal company employees and James Kerrigan, who had concealed himself behind a nearby tree.

The trio then headed to Tamaqua with a posse of coal company employees and Coal and Iron police behind them. The three were caught outside of Tamaqua a short time later. After lengthy trials, Kelly, Doyle and Campbell were hung in Mauch Chunk Prison on June 21, 1877, better known as the “Day of the Rope.”

Kerrigan would escape the hangman after providing evidence against the others and several additional murders carried out by the Mollies during their reign of terror in the 1870s.

Except the occasional story of Campbell leaving his handprint on the wall of his cell to protest his innocence, the Jones murder slipped into the passage of history, or did it?

Sightings

While working as a police officer in Lansford in the 1980s, I had investigated several reports made by passers-by who claimed to have witnessed an oddly but well-dressed man standing along Dock Street holding a shiny metallic object in his left hand. This was followed by reports of a tall, strangely dressed man wearing what could best be described as a top hat, running across Ridge Street in the early morning hours. Though I never personally observed any of these oddly dressed men, I had taken enough reports that the descriptions had made a lasting impression on me.

In 2019, noted Coaldale Historian Harry Murphy and I began investigating the Jones murder for a program at the Lansford Historical Society. After poring through numerous books, old trial transcripts and other available materials, we came upon some amazing facts long lost to history.

On the morning of his murder, Jones had, after sliding a pistol into his right pants pocket, left his house with a gift from his wife, a shiny new tin lunchbox which he carried in his left hand. We also learned that due to threats against his life, Jones, who would usually walk all the way from his home to the number 4 mine, would instead catch a ride on a small train known as a lokie. Jones would hop aboard the lokie at various spots along Dock Street, one of them being near the telegraph office.

A witness to the shooting described that after the first shot rang out, Jones was seen frantically waving his lunch box with his left hand in front of the faces of two men who were standing in front of him.

Following the murder of Tamaqua Police Officer Benjamin Yost, Pinkerton Detective James McParland, who infiltrated the Mollies by posing as James McKenna, told Alan Pinkerton of the Pinkerton Detective Agency that upon hearing of the death of Yost, Campbell picked up an old silk top hat, placed it upon his head and did a short jig on the bar of his saloon.

What if the oddly dressed man seen so many times standing along Dock Street holding a shiny metallic object in his left hand is actually John P. Jones holding his new lunchbox, given to him by his wife on the morning of his murder?

Could Jones still be waiting for a train to take him to work, a train that will never come?

Could the tall man wearing the silk top hat that was seen running across Ridge Street be Alex Campbell, whose hatred for Jones was so much that on the day of his murder Campbell could not resist the opportunity to witness his vengeance against Jones and ran across Ridge Street from his saloon to watch the planned murder? Campbell, wearing the same silk top hat he wore to celebrate the murder of Benjamin Yost?

What if, because of the way both men died - Jones the victim of assassins’ bullets to settle a long-simmering vendetta with Alex Campbell and Campbell who died at the end of a hangman’s rope to settle the public’s request for justice - they are still here? What if they are reliving the circumstances that led to their deaths, or could these sightings just be a person’s imagination, natural phenomena or something else?

Only you can decide.

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The Lansford Historical Society is a group of volunteers, dedicated in preserving the history of Lansford. The society operates the museum at 117-119 East Bertsch St., Lansford. The society is hosting a ghost tour tonight. Find more info on the society’s Facebook page.