Magisterial District Judge James J. Haggerty lay in state Sunday afternoon below the soaring dome of the Luzerne County Courthouse ahead of his funeral on Monday.
Perhaps best known as longtime mayor of Kingston, Haggerty served his community, his county and his country in a variety of roles prior to his death March 20 following a months-long battle with cancer. He was 58.
“He was a sitting judge. He's been a lifelong public servant. He has been a pillar in moving Luzerne County forward. To me, it would be one final honor for him as a judge,” Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo said of the decision to host Haggerty’s wake in the historic rotunda.
A funeral Mass was held Monday at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, Kingston. The Kingston Municipal Building was closed for three hours on Monday so staff could attend the funeral services.
Crocamo, who knew Haggerty as a fellow attorney, occupies a role that he helped make possible. In 2009 and 2010, he chaired the government study commission that drafted the Home Rule Charter, which transitioned the county from being governed by a board of commissioners to its current system of an 11-member council and appointed manager.
That system was adopted by voters in 2010 and took effect in 2012.
“Whenever issues came up, I would call him,” said Crocamo, who previously served as chief county solicitor. “We had very good conversations about the charter and the form of government.”
Crocamo valued those conversations and the dedication Haggerty brought to every endeavor.
“I always knew that when Jim Haggerty said he was going to do something, and we hung up the phone, he was going to do it,” she said. “He was a lawyer's lawyer and always professional.”
‘Someone that's irreplaceable’
Haggerty’s willingness to share his wisdom on many topics was a common theme among those looking back on his life.
“Jim was a best friend, a boss, a mentor. Someone that's irreplaceable,” said Kingston Administrator Paul Keating, who worked with Haggerty for two decades.
Haggerty was elected mayor in 1997 and took office the following year. The municipality’s finances had been in rough shape, and Haggerty campaigned on restoring Kingston’s fiscal health.
Voters approved of his efforts. Haggerty was re-elected four times before successfully running for district judge in 2017.
“Jim and I began our partnership as mayor and administrator in 1998," Keating said Friday at the Kingston Municipal Building. "It was nothing but a life-enriching privilege to serve those 20 years with him.”
‘He was brilliant’
Haggerty graduated from Wyoming Valley West High School in 1983 as class valedictorian. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied on a U.S. Army ROTC scholarship. He later earned a law degree from Georgetown Law School.
Haggerty, who operated his own law firm in Kingston, also served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, earning a U.S. Army parachutist badge.
“It’s probably one-in-a-million for a community our size to have a mayor that went to MIT and Georgetown,” Keating said. “He was brilliant. And he had so much to offer both personally and professionally.”
Keating credited Haggerty’s leadership in helping spearhead 20 years of progress in Kingston.
“There were so many great things that we were able to accomplish, such as building a bigger and better Hoyt Library, a new firehouse, a new Kingston community pool, several new parks and playgrounds. And we grew a great professional staff that many are still in place today,” Keating said.
The firehouse and municipal building are draped in black bunting in mourning with flags lowered to half-staff in Haggerty’s honor.
‘Larger-than-life’
State Rep. Aaron Kaufer, R-Kingston, said he was a teen when he first helped campaign for Haggerty. He later served as a junior councilman during Haggerty’s tenure and frequently interacted with him at local GOP political events.
“When you talk about somebody who was a larger-than-life figure in Kingston politics, Jim Haggerty was the embodiment of that,” Kaufer said.
Haggerty also served as a mentor to Kaufer, who was first elected to the state House in 2014.
“Before I decided to run for office, he was one of the first people I went to go see to ask his advice,” recalled Kaufer, now an experienced legislator in his fifth two-year term.
Haggerty’s displays of wisdom and intelligence weren’t limited to the political arena. He also was a seasoned traveler with a passion for history and trivia.
In the early 2000s, the then-mayor appeared on an episode of TV game show “The Weakest Link,” where he advanced to the finals before missing a question about Shakespeare, Kaufer recalled.
“And he still always kicked himself because he got the one question wrong,” Kaufer said. “He was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and he had a good sense of humor.”
A fighter until the end
Haggerty’s political career saw him cruise unopposed to a second six-year district judge term last fall after successfully winning the Democratic and Republican nominations in the May primary.
His Nov. 7 re-election came the day after Haggerty entered Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y., near the homes of his two sisters and their families. He was admitted to the hospital on his 58th birthday.
Haggerty documented his battle in a series of Facebook posts. His messages were often humorous -- such as when he joked about being able to look cool in a hospital gown – but he also was blunt about the aggressive cancer that he was fighting.
“I'm not going to sugar coat it -- I have been hurting,” Haggerty wrote on Nov. 17. “Believe me, your prayers and love and well wishes have all gotten to me and kept me going. There is no way I deserve to have such caring and selfless friends. Thank you for everything.”
According to that post, Haggerty was supposed to return to Kingston to enter home hospice, but on his medical team’s advice he stayed in Buffalo to undergo an immunotherapy regimen that they believed might deliver favorable results.
“This late change from hospice to immunotherapy was unexpected, but I'll gladly take the chance and keep fighting,” Haggerty wrote.
Haggerty died Wednesday, March 20 in a Buffalo-area hospice, with family at his side.
His last post, on Jan. 28, showed a picture of Haggerty with four hometown friends who drove 300 miles to Buffalo to check on him.
“Talk about great friends,” he wrote.
