Hudson Dusters
Encyclopedia
The Hudson Dusters was a New York City
street gang during the early twentieth century. Formed in the late 1890s by Circular Jack, Kid Yorke, and Goo Goo Knox the gang began operating from an apartment house on Hudson Street
. Knox, a former member of the Gopher Gang
, had fled after a failed attempt to gain leadership of the gang from then leader, Marty Brennan. However the two gangs later became allies during the gang wars against Gay Nineties
gangs, the Potashes
and Boodle Gang
s, soon controlling most of Manhattan's West Side as far as 13th Street and eastern Broadway, bordering Paul Kelly
's Five Points Gang
to the north. While the gang dominated the West Side, it constantly battled smaller rival gangs including the Fashion Plates, Pearl Buttons and the Marginals
for control of the Hudson River docks throughout the 1900s. Eventually, it drove the rival gangs out through sheer force of numbers, with over 200 members, not including the Gophers, who numbered several hundred more, controlling the waterfront by 1910.
The gang, now a dominant force in New York, included members such as "Red" Farrell, Mike Costello, "Rubber" Shaw, Rickey Harrison, and "Honey" Stewart. The gang soon became involved in election fraud as they were hired out by Tammany Hall
politicians in exchange for political protection. A colorful member by the name of Ding Dong organized a push cart theft ring whereby he had a group of apprentice gang members toss packages to him from a passing wagon, distracting the police. Soon the gang began to be noticed by the press as reporters met members in Greenwich Village
taverns hangouts becoming glamorized by the city. They came to represent the bohemian spirit of the area. According to author Luc Sante
, activist Dorothy Day
, by her own admission, spent much of her youth partying with the Dusters in Greenwich Village
. Many of the gangs members, including most of its leaders, had become drug addicts and were known for their wild "cocaine parties" in which the gang wandered the city afterwards in a drugged state committing violent acts. One victim of these attacks was Gopher member Owney Madden
who was shot six times outside the Arbor Dance Hall on November 6, 1914, resulting in the deaths of three of the gang members less than a week later. With the gang's political connections to Tammany Hall, the police remained inactive. However, the gang frequently moved its headquarters to avoid police raids by "strong arm squads".
The gang, who regularly demanded goods from local merchants, soon attracted the unwanted attention of the police after an incident in which the gang destroyed a saloon after its owner refused to deliver six barrels of beer to a gang party. The saloon keeper reported this to his friend Dennis Sullivan, a patrolman from the Charles Street station, who arrested "Red" Farrell and ten other members at a local pool hall for vagrancy. The gang retaliated, luring Sullivan into the neighborhood onto the premises of a local merchant, who had been forced to make a complaint against a member of the gang. When Sullivan arrived he was attacked by approximately twenty members and severely beaten, eventually losing consciousness. He was stripped of his uniform and his badge was thrown into a sewer drain. As the gang fled, five members remained behind to jump on Sullivan's back and to kick him in the face repeatedly before a police "flying squad" arrived. Hospitalized for over a month the incident was immortalized in a poem by Gopher leader "One Leg" Curran:
The gang liked the poem so much they had it printed on thousands of sheets and distributed throughout the neighborhood as well as the Charles Street Station and the hospital where Sullivan was recovering. The song grew to be so popular that many juvenile gangs would commonly sing the tune in the streets.
By 1914 however, with most of its leaders in jail or dead from drug overdoses, the gang had fallen apart as the Marginals, under Tanner Smith
, drove what was left of the gang from their territory where the Marginals
, after defeating the Pearl Buttons, would control for the next decade. The last members of the gang were eventually arrested by police during its clearing of gangs from Manhattan in 1916.
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...
street gang during the early twentieth century. Formed in the late 1890s by Circular Jack, Kid Yorke, and Goo Goo Knox the gang began operating from an apartment house on Hudson Street
Hudson Street (Manhattan)
Hudson Street is a north/south oriented street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Running from TriBeCa to Greenwich Village and through Hudson Square, Hudson Street has two distinct one-way traffic patterns that meet at Abingdon Square, at the street's intersection with Eighth Avenue and...
. Knox, a former member of the Gopher Gang
Gopher Gang
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th century New York street gang known for its members including Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden...
, had fled after a failed attempt to gain leadership of the gang from then leader, Marty Brennan. However the two gangs later became allies during the gang wars against Gay Nineties
Gay Nineties
Gay Nineties is an American nostalgic term that refers to the decade of the 1890s. It is known in the UK as the Naughty Nineties, and refers there to the decade of supposedly decadent art by Aubrey Beardsley, the witty plays and trial of Oscar Wilde, society scandals and the beginning of the...
gangs, the Potashes
Potashes (gang)
The Potashes were a 19th-century American street gang active in Greenwich Village and the New York waterfront during the early-to mid 1890s. One of the many to rise in New York City during the "Gay Nineties"-period, the gang was led by Red Shay Meehan and based near the Babbit Soap Factory on...
and Boodle Gang
Boodle Gang
The Boodle Gang was an American street gang active in New York City during the mid-to- late 19th century. The gang were notorious "butcher cart thieves" during the 1850s and their hijacking methods would later be used by criminals of the early twentieth century....
s, soon controlling most of Manhattan's West Side as far as 13th Street and eastern Broadway, bordering Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly (criminal)
Paul Kelly was an Italian immigrant who founded the Five Points Gang in New York City after starting some brothels with prize monies earned in boxing...
's Five Points Gang
Five Points Gang
Five Points Gang was a 19th-century and early 20th-century criminal organization, primarily of Italian-American origins, based in the Sixth Ward of Manhattan, New York City. Since the early 19th century, the area was first known for gangs of Irish immigrants...
to the north. While the gang dominated the West Side, it constantly battled smaller rival gangs including the Fashion Plates, Pearl Buttons and the Marginals
Marginals
The Marginals, also called the "Paddy Irish" gang, was a New York street gang during the early 1900s which, under stevedore Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith, succeeded the longtime Hudson Dusters from their territory of New York's Lower West Side....
for control of the Hudson River docks throughout the 1900s. Eventually, it drove the rival gangs out through sheer force of numbers, with over 200 members, not including the Gophers, who numbered several hundred more, controlling the waterfront by 1910.
The gang, now a dominant force in New York, included members such as "Red" Farrell, Mike Costello, "Rubber" Shaw, Rickey Harrison, and "Honey" Stewart. The gang soon became involved in election fraud as they were hired out by 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...
politicians in exchange for political protection. A colorful member by the name of Ding Dong organized a push cart theft ring whereby he had a group of apprentice gang members toss packages to him from a passing wagon, distracting the police. Soon the gang began to be noticed by the press as reporters met members in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
taverns hangouts becoming glamorized by the city. They came to represent the bohemian spirit of the area. According to author Luc Sante
Luc Sante
-Early life:Born in Verviers, Belgium, Sante emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. He attended school in New York City, first at Regis High School in Manhattan and then at Columbia University.-Writing:...
, activist Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
, by her own admission, spent much of her youth partying with the Dusters in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Many of the gangs members, including most of its leaders, had become drug addicts and were known for their wild "cocaine parties" in which the gang wandered the city afterwards in a drugged state committing violent acts. One victim of these attacks was Gopher member Owney Madden
Owney Madden
Owney "The Killer" Madden was a leading underworld figure in Manhattan, most notable for his involvement in organized crime during Prohibition. He also ran the famous Cotton Club and was a leading boxing promoter in the 1930s.-Early life:Owen Vincent Madden was born at 25 Somerset Street, in...
who was shot six times outside the Arbor Dance Hall on November 6, 1914, resulting in the deaths of three of the gang members less than a week later. With the gang's political connections to Tammany Hall, the police remained inactive. However, the gang frequently moved its headquarters to avoid police raids by "strong arm squads".
The gang, who regularly demanded goods from local merchants, soon attracted the unwanted attention of the police after an incident in which the gang destroyed a saloon after its owner refused to deliver six barrels of beer to a gang party. The saloon keeper reported this to his friend Dennis Sullivan, a patrolman from the Charles Street station, who arrested "Red" Farrell and ten other members at a local pool hall for vagrancy. The gang retaliated, luring Sullivan into the neighborhood onto the premises of a local merchant, who had been forced to make a complaint against a member of the gang. When Sullivan arrived he was attacked by approximately twenty members and severely beaten, eventually losing consciousness. He was stripped of his uniform and his badge was thrown into a sewer drain. As the gang fled, five members remained behind to jump on Sullivan's back and to kick him in the face repeatedly before a police "flying squad" arrived. Hospitalized for over a month the incident was immortalized in a poem by Gopher leader "One Leg" Curran:
- Says Dinny "Here's me only chance
- To gain meself a name;
- I'll clean up the Hudson Dusters,
- and reach the hall of fame."
- He lost his stick and cannon,
- and his shield they took away.
- It was then he remembered,
- Every dog had his day.
The gang liked the poem so much they had it printed on thousands of sheets and distributed throughout the neighborhood as well as the Charles Street Station and the hospital where Sullivan was recovering. The song grew to be so popular that many juvenile gangs would commonly sing the tune in the streets.
By 1914 however, with most of its leaders in jail or dead from drug overdoses, the gang had fallen apart as the Marginals, under Tanner Smith
Tanner Smith
Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith was an American criminal and gang leader in New York City during the early 20th century. He was the founder and leader of the Marginals, or "Irish Paddy Gang", which was active in Greenwich Village and along the Hudson River waterfront from around the turn of the century...
, drove what was left of the gang from their territory where the Marginals
Marginals
The Marginals, also called the "Paddy Irish" gang, was a New York street gang during the early 1900s which, under stevedore Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith, succeeded the longtime Hudson Dusters from their territory of New York's Lower West Side....
, after defeating the Pearl Buttons, would control for the next decade. The last members of the gang were eventually arrested by police during its clearing of gangs from Manhattan in 1916.
Members
- Circular Jack
- Kid Yorke
- Frank "Goo Goo" Knox (died August 26, 1921)
- A West Side gunman, Knox had a lengthy criminal career spending time in the House of Refuge for disorderly conductDisorderly conductDisorderly conduct is a criminal charge in most jurisdictions in the United States. Typically, disorderly conduct makes it a crime to be drunk in public, to "disturb the peace", or to loiter in certain areas. Many types of unruly conduct may fit the definition of disorderly conduct, as such...
in 1912, the New York State Reformatory for felonious assault in 1914, and Elmira ReformatoryElmira Correctional FacilityElmira Correctional Facility, known otherwise as "the Hill", is a maximum security prison located in New York in the USA. The prison is located in Chemung County, New York in the City of Elmira...
for grand larcenyGrand LarcenyGrand Larceny is a 1987 thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Marilu Henner, Ian McShane, Omar Sharif and Louis Jourdan.-Plot summary:...
in 1916. In 1918, he was taken into custody at Jersey City and charged with draft dodging but was released on probation. He was killed by John Hudson in what police suspected was a dispute over bootlegging. He was believed by authorities to have ceased criminal activities for two years before his body was found on the sidewalk of Fifty-Second Street. Hudson later died of a morphine overdose at Bellevue Hospital under mysterious circumstances.- Charles "Red" Farrell (born 1851)
- A longtime burglar and pickpocket, Farrell would be in and out of prison from 1883 onwards. By the time of his ninth and final arrest in August 1922, the 71-year-old thief was one of the oldest pickpockets operating in the city and was sentenced to six month imprisonment for jostling.
- Mike Costello
- Robert "Rubber" Shaw (died July 31, 1919)
- One of the later gang leaders, Shaw was gunned down in a drive-by shooting while standing on a street corner with George LewisGeorge LewisGeorge Lewis may refer to:*George Lowys or Lewis , mayor of Winchelsea*George Lewis , track and field athlete from Trinidad and Tobago*George Lewis , New Orleans jazz clarinettist...
in HobokenHoboken, New JerseyHoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
on July 31, 1919. His death is thought to have been in revenge for the murder of rival gang leader Thomas "Tanner" Smith of the MarginalsMarginalsThe Marginals, also called the "Paddy Irish" gang, was a New York street gang during the early 1900s which, under stevedore Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith, succeeded the longtime Hudson Dusters from their territory of New York's Lower West Side....
only five days before.- Richard "Rickey" Harrison (c. 1893 – May 13, 1920)
- A prominent member during the early 1900s, Harrison survived an attempt on his life while imprisoned in The TombsThe Tombs"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
when he was stabbed on November 1914, and refused to identify his attacker while recovering in Bellevue Hospital. Later arrested for the robbery of the Knickerbocker Waiters Club on September 7, 1918 (during which a visiting Canadian soldier George Griffelns was killed), he escaped briefly from The TombsThe Tombs"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
on October 4. However he was recaptured by detectives in Newark on October 16. Eventually extradited to New York, despite appeals to the US Supreme Court, he was convicted of murder and armed robbery for which he would be executed by the electric chairElectric chairExecution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...
in Sing Sing Prison on May 13, 1920.- "Honey" Stewart
In popular culture
- Several members of the Huson Dusters are portrayed in the historical novels The Angel of Darkness, by Caleb Carr (1997), as well as Free Love (2001) and Murder Me Now by Annette Meyers.
- Dave Van Ronk, the noted Greenwich Village guitarist/singer, formed a band called The Hudson Dusters, and released an LP album (1968?) under that name. (Verve/Forecast LZR 70413)
Further reading
- Sante, Luc. Low Life. Vintage, 1992.
- Sifakis, Carl. Encyclopedia of American Crime. New York: Facts On File Inc., 1982.