Franklin B. Gowen

Franklin B. Gowen (1836 – December 14 1889) was the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. He had studied law, and in 1862 he was elected District Attorney for Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

Gowen joined the Reading in 1864 as chief counsel for the railroad. He was responsible for a court victory over the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Reading's directors were so impressed, that they appointed him president of the railroad in 1866. As president, Gowen was anti-union; in 1873 he paid US$100,000 to the Pinkerton Detective Agency in an effort to break up the Workingmen's Benevolent Association labor union. Pinkerton's agents discovered that the WBA was intimately associated with another association called the Molly Maguires. The effort to break up the union culminated in a controversial trial that began on January 18 1876, in which Gowen was the special prosecutor.

While the investigation was proceeding, Gowen and the Reading Railroad were secretly buying up as many Anthracite mines as they could get their hands on. By the end of the 1870s, Gowen's mine holdings covered about 125,000 acres, the largest holdings in the world.

Gowen left the Reading in 1883 and returned to his law practice.

Gowen died of a gunshot wound on December 14 1889 at Wormly's Hotel in Washington, DC. Some have speculated that his death was the result of action by the Molly Maguires, while others have said that he committed suicide as a result of the guilt he felt for framing union members.