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 trained 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 huge 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. There were rivalries between the fire companies to put fires down in the neighborhood. One of the strategies that Bowery Boys used to ensure that other fire engine companies could not put out the fires was once hearing the alarm sound a Bowery Boy would find the nearest fire hydrant to the fire and flip over an empty barrel over the fire hydrant and sit on the barrel, so it could not be seen or used. The Bowery Boy would sit on the barrel until his own fire engine arrived; however, fights over the fire hydrant would break out, and sometimes the Bowery Boys had no time to actually extinguish the fire.[2]

William Poole was a large man, 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 butcher 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 created from his Washington Street gang with a collection of many different smaller street gangs. Other key gangs included in 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 Nativists who were opposed to encroachment of Irish-based gangs due to immigration caused by 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 close to the Five Points neighborhood, where many immigrants settled. Five Points is located in today's lower Manhattan, specifically Chinatown. Waves of Irish and German immigrants called the Five Points neighborhood home and their first stop on their American journey. Due to the large number of Irish immigrants, they too created their own street gang. The Dead Rabbits were an Irish membership gang and their biggest rival was Poole's Bowery Boy gang. Much of the tension between the two gangs was based on racial background and territory, "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 a lot of alliances that supported his ideology and street gang, but so did the Dead Rabbits. One of the most noted female brawlers was known as Hell-Cat Maggie. She fought alongside the Dead Rabbits during the early 1840s against rival nativist gangs, especially the Bowery Boys. She was said "to have filed her front teeth to points, while on her fingers she wore long artificial nails, constructed of brass."[2]

William Poole opposed Tammany Hall because they advocated and were built up with non-Native-born government officials. The Tammany Hall gang were also actively protecting Irish voters from Poole's gang, Bowery Boys, whom he sent out to beat them up as a way to prevent them from registering. He was also active in the Know Nothings political movement, which was an American nativist political party. The purpose of the political party, according to the New Orleans True Delta, 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. And there were specific qualification that must be met to gain membership in the Know Nothing political party. One, the person applying for entry must "be a native born citizen, of native born parents and not of the Catholic religion".[3] The goal was to organize native-born Protestants to defend and preserve their traditional religion and political values.

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, and Poole was against Morrissey being paid. Sullivan beat Morrisey but was then distracted into leaving the ring by Morrisey's friends. When the referee announced a winner, he chose based on Morrisey being the one in the ring. In 1854 a fight was arranged between Morrissey and Poole, which Poole won.[4]

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 1863. 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
• 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)