Minooka's Old Timers - Circa 1914

Anthracite Museum, Dade Park, Scranton

Memories of Steve O'Neill by Scranton Newspaperman - 1935

Minooka Fire-Swept - August 24, 1894

St. Joseph's Founded in 1874

Wages of Sin - South Side News - October 1, 1894

Scranton Tribune
October 1, 1894
South Side News

Wages of Sin is Death

John Moran Flees to Escape the Law and Finds Refuge in Death

and Finds Refuge in Death

The remains of John Moran, son of Martin Moran, of the "Lower Patch," in the Twentieth ward, were yesterday afternoon interred in St. Joseph's Catholic cemetery, Minooka. There is a tragic lesson interwoven with the young man's death.

About five weeks ago the hotel of George Beamish, of Minooka, was burglarized during the night. Suspicion pointed to Moran, Michael Cannon and John Padden. When they heard the Hotelkeeper Beamish had a warrant issued for their arrest, they fled, and nothing further was heard about them until the friends of Moran saw in the Pittston correspondence of last Friday's TRIBUNE the account of the death and burial of a man who had been killed on the Lehigh Valley railroad, supposed to be Thomas Moran, of Carr's Patch. Becoming uneasy some of them went to Pittston, Saturday, and identified the clothes worn by the daed man as those of John Moran.

When the three young men hurriedly left home they went to Pittston and took up assumed names. Moran changed his first name from John to Thomas and Cannon masqueraded under the name of James White. They secured work at the Stevens colliery in West Pittston. On Friday, Sept. 21, Moran and Cannon visited Sturmerville, in company with a fellow boarder, Cormac McMonigal, whose parents live in Hazleton. They drank freely and at a late hour Moran and Cannon separated from McMonigal and walked from Sturmerville to the Lehigh Valley station at Pittston and near the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Junction attempted to board a rapidly moving coal train. Moran was dragged several hundred yards, and at length his body was ground to pieces under the wheels. Cannon was also dragged, but fell to the side of the track and rolled into the ditch where he laid unconscious until morning.

When Moran's remains were gathered up, in one of his pockets was found a store book filled out in the name of Cormac McMonigal. The Pittston police notified McMonigal's folks, but their delay in answering rendered it necessary to inter the body, which was done at the expense of the Pittston Poor district. Later McMonigal turned up and that dissipated the belief that it was he who had been killed, but he informed the police who the dead man was; and Moran's relatives, as before stated, seeing the facts in the Pittston column of THE TRIBUNE investigated and found that it was John Moran who had been killed.

The remains were exhumed and further identified, and brought home for interment.

Advertisements in that day's paper:

"That tired feeling which is so common and so overpowering is entirely driven off by Hood's Sarsaparilla, the best blood purifier. Hood's Sarsaparilla overcomes weakness.

Hood's Pills are the best after-dinner pills, assist digestion, cure headache. 25 cents a box.

Minooka News - October 15, 1895

Scranton Tribune - October 15, 1985
The night school conducted by the members of the Young Men's Institute was re-opened last evening for the winter session. The class will assemble at their hall three nights each week. Martin H. McDonough and Joseph Mulderig will serve in the capacity of instructors.

Richard J. Cusick, P.J. Quinn, W.J. Burke, John B. O'Malley and John Kearney represented the St. Joseph Total Abstinence and Benevolent society at the quarterly convention of the second district of the Scranton Diocesan union yesterday.

Henry Shorten and Miss Annie Sullivan, of Miner's Hill, will be married on October 22.

Much interest is manifested in the coming shooting match between Martin Mangan and John Higgins, which takes place Oct. 21.

A valuable team of gray horses owned by Supervisor Gibbons was killed at the National breaker on Saturday by a trip of runaway gondolas.