William Poole

Poole was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, to parents of English descent.[1] In 1832, his family moved to New York City to open a butcher shop in Washington Market, Manhattan. Poole became skilled in his father's trade and eventually took over the family store. In the 1840s, he worked with the Howard (Red Rover) Volunteer Fire Engine Company #34, on Hudson and Christopher Streets, and started the Washington Street Gang which later became the Bowery Boys. During this period in New York, fires were a problem for the city. Volunteer fire groups, such as the one Poole was in were important for keeping fires under control. These firefighting groups were closely tied with street gangs, and were seen as a public service provided by those groups. Throughout the years there was an ongoing rivalry between gangs; over who would be the one to extinguish the fire. There began a common strategy that the Bowery Boys utilized to ensure that other fire engine companies could not put out the fires. Being that upon hearing the alarm sound a member of the Bowery Boys would find the nearest fire hydrant. He would then proceed to flip over an empty barrel upon the hydrant. In doing so it could not be seen or used. The Bowery Boys would sit on the barrel until his own fire engine arrived. Fights over the hydrants would break out, and often the Bowery Boys had no time to actually extinguish the fire.[2]

William Poole was a large man for the time. He weighed over two hundred pounds and was about six feet tall. He was known for his brutal boxing style: "He was well known as being a notoriously dirty fighter, not averse to biting off noses, gouging out eyeballs, or beating a man to jelly."[3] He fought in many fights that were considered illegal due to the brutality of bare-knuckle boxing. He was also a known skilled knife fighter, as a result of his profession as a butcher. Poole was a known gambler and a heavy drinker. He closed his family's butchery business in the 1850s and opened a drinking saloon, known as the "Bank Exchange".[3]

Street gangs in New York were fluid in their membership and name as they merged and found new leaders. The most well-known of these was the Bowery Boys, which Poole formed from his own Washington Street gang and a collection of many other street gangs. Other key gangs incorporated into the Bowery Boys were the American Guards, Atlantic Guards, True Blue Americans, and the Order of the Star-Spangled Guard. These gangs were composed of nativist White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who were opposed to enfranchisement of the growing number of Irish Catholic refugees from the Great Famine. Street gangs, like the Bowery Boys, "were bound by ethnic ties or nativist belief; the members tended to be deeply patriotic, and a common thread was the belief that the country was pretty well full, so that newcomers were not welcomed."[2] Poole's gang was located near to the Five Points neighborhood, where many recent Irish Catholic immigrants settled. Five Points was located in what is now Chinatown in Lower Manhattan. Waves of Irish- and German-Americans moved into the Five Points as their first stop on the way to the American dream. In response to attacks by Poole and his followers, the Irish created their own street gangs. The Dead Rabbits were an Irish-membership gang and the biggest rival of Poole's Bowery Boys. Much of the hatred between the two gangs was based on racial and religious differences. "For years the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits waged a bitter feud, and a week seldom passed in which they did not come to blows, either along the Bowery, in the Five Points section."[2] Both gangs were primarily brawlers and street fighters, another reason why William Poole was a well-known fighter, and most of their battling was done in open spaces. Poole made many alliances with other street gangs that supported his ideology.

William Poole detested the Democratic Party's local political machine, Tammany Hall, because they accepted and included immigrants as members. Tammany Hall-affiliated street gangs also protected Irish Catholics from Poole's Bowery Boys, whom he sent to terrorize immigrants and keep them from registering to vote. Poole and the Bowery Boys were a de facto extension of the Know Nothings, a nativist and militantly anti-Catholic political party. According to the New Orleans True Delta, the purpose of the Know Nothings was "twofold – part religious, part political; and the ends aimed at the disenfranchisement of adopted citizens, and their exclusion from office, and perpetual war upon the Catholic religion."[3] Originally, the Know Nothings were known as the Native American Party, but changed their name in 1855. Members of the Know Nothing Party had to "be a native-born citizen, of native-born parents, and not of the Catholic religion".[3] The goal was to organize native-born White Anglo-Saxon Protestants to defend and preserve their religion and control of American politics from enfranchised Catholics, Jews, immigrants, and their descendants.

Poole was nominated by the Whig party in April 1848 as a candidate for alderman, representing the Sixth Ward.[4] Poole fared poorly in the general election, receiving only 199 votes and tying for last place with his ticket-mate against four other candidates.[5]

In February of 1853, Poole was appointed to represent the Sixth Ward on the New York City Board of Education.[6]

Bill Poole portrait from a tobacco company boxer profile card, circa late 1880s

As a well-known gang leader and pugilist, Poole was frequently involved in fights, brawls, and other confrontations. The New York Daily Times reported the following on October 23, 1851:

A Brutal Outrage in Broadway. We learn that at an early hour yesterday morning, two noted pugilists entered Florence's Hotel, corner of Broadway and Howard street, and without any provocation seized the bar-keeper and beat his face to a jelly. It appears that Thomas Hyer, William Poole, and several others entered the above hotel, and while one of the party held Charles Owens (the bar-keeper) by the hair of his head, another of the gang beat him in the face to such an extent that his left eye was completely ruined and the flesh of his cheek mangled in the most shocking manner. After thus accomplishing the heartless act, all of them made an effort to find Mr. John Florence, the proprietor of the hotel, with a view of serving him in the same manner, but not succeeding in their latter design, they found the hat of Mr. Florence and wantonly cut it into strips, and trampled it under their feet. The desperadoes then left the house, and in the meantime Mr. Owens was placed under medical attendance, and in the course of a short time he proceeded to the Jefferson Market Police, in company with Mr. Florence, where they made their affidavits respecting the inhuman outrage, upon which Justice Blakeley issued his warrants for Hyer, Poole, and such of the others who were concerned in the affair, and the same were placed in the hands of officer Baldwin for service. Since the above was written we have been reliably informed that the affray originated from the fact of the barkeeper having refused them drinks, after they had been furnished with them twice in succession.

Poole's arch rival, John Morrissey, was an Irish immigrant and worked for the political machine at Tammany Hall. Morrissey was also a popular bare-knuckle boxer and challenged Poole to a match. Though the two men were of differing ethnic backgrounds and political parties, the initial grounds for their dispute may have arisen from an earlier bet by Poole on a boxing match at Boston Corners on October 12, 1853, in which Poole had placed his bet on Morrissey's opponent, "Yankee Sullivan". The results of the boxing match were disputed—Sullivan beat Morrisey but was then distracted into leaving the ring by Morrisey's friends and the referee announced Morrisey winner for being in the ring—and Poole was against Morrissey being paid. In 1854 a fight was arranged between Morrissey and Poole, which Poole won.[7]

Shooting and death

Morrissey plotted revenge and on February 25, 1855, recently fired NYPD patrolman Lewis Baker and Jim Turner, who were allegedly acting as enforcers for Morrissey, shot Poole in the leg and chest at Stanwix Hall, a bar on Broadway near Prince, at that time a center of the city's nightlife.[8] The New York Daily Times reported on February 26, 1855, the following:

Illustration of Bill Poole's murder in George W. Walling's "Recollections of a New York Chief of Police" (1887).

Terrible Shooting Affray in Broadway – Bill Poole Fatally Wounded – The Morrissey and Poole Feud – Renewal of Hostilities – Several Persons Severely Wounded. Broadway, in the vicinity of Prince and Houston Streets, was the scene of an exciting shooting affair about 1 o'clock yesterday morning, which is but a repetition of a similar occurrence that transpired a few weeks ago under Wallack's Theatre between Tom Hyer, Lewis Baker, Jim Turner and several other noted pugilists... View Full Article at Wikisource

Several days after the shooting, on March 8, 1855, Poole died in his home on Christopher Street at the age of 33. Poole was survived by his wife and son, Charles Poole. The war between Poole and Morrissey had been very public and The New York Times covered the events of Stanwix Hall almost every day for a month. One local newsman reported Poole's last words were, "Good-bye, boys; I die a true American," although the New York Evening Post, quoting an unnamed man who was at Poole's bedside when he died, reported that his last words named Morrissey as his killer. [9] [3] He was buried on March 11, 1855, in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery with thousands of spectators.

Lewis Baker fled New York City, with the help of Daniel Kerrigan, a twenty-four year old 1853 Democratic nominee for councilman. Kerrigan was an Irish-American and expressed sympathy for Baker. The Times called Kerrigan "one 'of the principle accessories to the murder of Poole and the flight of Baker."[10] Facing an international manhunt organized by Poole's patrons in the Know Nothing Party, Baker boarded the Jewett and sailed for the Canary Islands. He was intercepted, however, on the high seas on April 17, 1855. Baker was arrested and returned to New York City to be tried for the murder of William Poole. All three trials, however, ended with a hung jury and Baker ultimately walked away a free man. Morrissey went on to open up several Irish pubs and accumulated a fortune of $1.5 million. He later served two terms as a New York state senator and two more terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Morrissey died in 1878 and lies buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery in his childhood hometown of Troy, New York.[3]

Daniel Day-Lewis played a heavily fictionalized version of Bill the Butcher, renamed William Cutting, in the 2002 Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York. The chief differences between the historical Poole and the cinematic "Butcher": while Poole died before the Civil War, the fictional character is still alive and leading his street gang in 1862, and he claims his father was killed by the British at the Battle of Lundy's Lane which took place seven years before he was born. Although, he reveals to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character that he is 47 years old, making him born in 1815, unlike the real butcher, born in 1821. The character is slain in an epic street battle at the end of the film.

• Dead Rabbits riot

Wikiquote has quotations related to William Poole.

• Bill Poole - American National Biography
• William Poole bibliography Archived 2009-06-28 at the Wayback Machine
• NY Press: William Poole
• William Poole at Find a Grave
• Article From New York Times reporting February 26, 1855, on the shooting of Bill Poole at Stanwix Hall on Broadway in NYC (requires user account)