Bowery Boys
Encyclopedia
The Bowery Boys were a nativist
Nativism (politics)
Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....

, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

 based north of the Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...

 district of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in the mid-19th century. They were primarily stationed in the Bowery section of New York, which was, at the time, extended north of the Five Points. It was said that the gang was so popular during its time that many of the lesser gangs of the Bowery followed it in its various fights with the Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...

.

Bowery Boys were mostly single males who frequented the saloons and brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

s of the Bowery and dressed in black stovepipe hats, red shirts, black flared trousers, high-heeled calfskin boots and black vests, with oil-slicked hair. One famous member of the Bowery Boys was William Poole
William Poole
William Poole , also known as Bill the Butcher, was a member of the New York City gang the Bowery Boys, a bare-knuckle boxer, and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement.-Early life:...

, also known as Bill the Butcher.

The Bowery Boys often fought Irish gangs from the Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...

 such as longtime rivals the Dead Rabbits
Dead Rabbits
The Dead Rabbits were a gang in New York City in the 1850s, and originally were a part of the Roach Guards. Daniel Cassidy claimed that the name has a second meaning rooted in Irish American vernacular of NYC in 1857 and that the word "Rabbit" is the phonetic corruption of the Irish word ráibéad,...

 and were affiliated with the "Know-Nothing", or "American", political party which lasted from 1849 to 1856 and the Civil War era Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

. It is noted that whether the above information is true or not, Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury
Herbert Asbury was an American journalist and writer who is best known for his true crime books detailing crime during the 19th and early 20th century such as Gem of the Prairie, Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld and The Gangs of New York...

's book, Gangs of New York
Gangs of New York
Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New...

, clearly states that the gang was most famous for helping the nativist
Nativism (politics)
Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture....

 movement. The party, which ultimately replaced the Whig
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

 party in New York, had nothing to do with the people currently referred to as "Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

s". Rather, the movement consisted of "native born Americans" and was opposed to Catholic immigration. Originally, it was a branch of Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...

 but decided to go on its own after many disagreements. The Bowery Boys, deciding to align themselves with the American party, had many fights with the O'Connell Guards, who decidedly aligned themselves with Tammany Hall.

During the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...

 of 1863, the Bowery Boys took part in much of the looting while fighting with rival gangs. By the end of the decade, however, the gang had split into various factions as the Bowery Boys gradually disappeared.

Asbury's book, Gangs of New York, describes the most famous leader of the Bowery Boys as a man only referred to as Mose the Fireboy
Mose the Fireboy
Mose the Fireboy was the pseudonym of an American folk hero and supposed leader of the Bowery Boys during the 1840s, possibly based on Mose Humphrey. One of its most celebrated leaders during the period, he and his lieutenant Syksey were well-known for battling members of the Dead Rabbits and...

; however, Richard Dorson
Richard Dorson
Richard Mercer Dorson was an American folklorist, author, professor, and director of the Folklore Institute at Indiana University.Dorson was born in New York City. He studied at the Phillips Exeter Academy from 1929 to 1933....

's America in Legend traces the growth of this character from a fictional B'hoy
B'hoy and g'hal
B'hoy and g'hal were the prevailing slang words used to describe the young men and women of the rough-and-tumble working class culture of Lower Manhattan in the late 1840s and into the period of the American Civil War...

 portrayed on stage into a giant of urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...

, and the character is plainly fictional. He is described as "at least 8 feets tall and broad in proportion, and his colossal bulk was crowned by a great shock of ginger-colored hair, on which he wore a beaver hat
Beaver hat
A beaver hat is a hat made from felted beaver fur. They were fashionable across much of Europe during the period 1550-1850 because the soft yet resilient material could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes...

 measuring more than two from crown to brim. His hands were as large as the hams of a Virginia hog, and on those rare moments when he was in repose they dangled below his knees; it was Skysey's habit to boast pridefully that his chieftain could stand erect and scratch his kneecap. The feet of the great captain were so large that the ordinary boot of commerce would not fit his big toe; he wore specially constructed footgear, the soles of which were copper plates studded with nails an inch long. Woe and desolation came upon the gangs of the Five Points when the great Mose leaped into their midst and began to kick and stamp; they fled in despair and hid themselves in the innermost depths of the rookeries
Rookery (slum)
A rookery was the colloquial British English term given in the 18th and 19th centuries to a city slum occupied by poor people...

 of Paradise Square."

Further reading

  • Adams, Peter. The Bowery Boys: Street Corner Radicals and the Politics of Rebellion. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-275-98538-5
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