Bill the Butcher: The Gangster Who Terrorised the Streets of Mid-1800s New York City

Feb 23, 2023
8 min read

Bill the Butcher poster in a gritty old New York street, with portrait and text about the gangster who terrorized mid-1800s NYC

On the night of 25 February 1855, a man was shot twice at close range in a Broadway saloon, once in the knee and once through the chest near his heart. His doctors said it was unnatural that he was still alive. He stayed alive for nearly two weeks, while fellow gang members sat at his bedside and relayed bulletins to the crowd gathered in the street below. When he finally died, 6,000 people turned out for the funeral and a building collapsed under the weight of mourners trying to get a view. His last words were painted on the side of the hearse in large letters. His name was William Poole, better known as Bill the Butcher, and this is his story.

William Poole, aka Bill the Butcher, was a fierce knife-wielding gang leader in 19th-century New York City. He led the nativist street gang Bowery Boys, went on to rule the criminal underworld, and later got into politics. Bill's larger-than-life presence was immortalised by actor Daniel Day-Lewis' fictionalised portrayal of him as William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting in the 2002 film Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese. But there is more to Bill's life than just his charismatic personality and explosive nature.

The Early Life of Bill the Butcher

Bill was born in New Jersey on July 24, 1821, to English immigrants. Ten years later, his family relocated to New York City, and his father opened a butcher shop at Washington Market, a busy food market on Washington, Fulton, and Vesey Streets in Lower Manhattan. Eventually, Bill took up the reins of the shop, which was partly the reason for his nickname "Bill the Butcher." He also went by that nickname as he was a bare-knuckle boxer who enjoyed bashing his rivals until they resembled bloody cuts of meat.

He was a dirty fighter known for gouging his opponents' eyes out or chewing off their noses. Bill's career as a butcher sharpened his knife-wielding skills. These skills and his boxing experience shaped him into one of the most well-regarded street fighters in the country. By the early 1850s, he was a married man with a young son, living in a small brick house at 164 Christopher Street by the Hudson River. Around that time he closed his butchery business and opened a bar called the Bank Exchange, where Catholics were not welcome. He refused entry to anyone who didn't eat meat on Fridays.

The Bowery Boys

Bill went on to lead the Bowery Boys, an anti-Irish and anti-Catholic street gang. This gang operated from the Bowery, a broad commercial avenue in Lower Manhattan, though their rivalry with Five Points gangs brought them into constant contact with the crime-infested slum a mile to the southwest. Like other street gangs, the Bowery Boys were not just a criminal organisation. Their members belonged to poor, neglected neighbourhoods, and street gangs closed the gap created by the lack of social services.

Bowery Boys with soap-locks hairstyle, smoking cigars and wearing working class fashionable clothing, circa 1840-1847.

These gangs gave members jobs like firefighting, which provided much-needed structure. In the 1840s, Bill became a firefighter and joined the Howard Fire Engine Company Number 34. The Dead Rabbits, which was the biggest rival gang comprising Irish members, also ran fire brigades. The gangs' enmity manifested even in firefighting jobs. If both brigades were simultaneously at the scene of a fire, rival gangs would fight in the street even as the flames raged on. And if the Bowery Boys arrived at a fire and couldn't put it out, they'd ensure that the Dead Rabbits couldn't do so either. A member would put a barrel on the closest fire hydrant and sit on it, preventing access.

The Bowery Boys were identifiable by their distinctive look: red shirts, trousers tucked into boots, tall stovepipe hats, and a soap-lock hairstyle, where a long curl of hair was greased down across the forehead with bear grease or soap. It was deliberately theatrical, a way of marking yourself as a Bowery Boy the moment you walked into a room.

Nativists Versus Immigrants

The first half of the 19th century saw Europeans immigrating to the United States in enormous numbers. However, many "nativist" Americans, who were second and third-generation immigrants themselves, despised this wave of immigration for ethnic and economic reasons. They felt that new immigrants would take their jobs and their opportunities. Moreover, most immigrants were Catholic, while many nativists were Anglo-Saxon Protestants, which led to deep religious tension.

By the 1850s, more than half of the population in New York City was Irish Catholic. Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine that gave the Irish membership and political support, milked the surge in migration to dominate city politics. The Dead Rabbits and other Irish Catholic street gangs voted for its candidates in exchange for food, money, and protection from police.

The Rise of the Know Nothing Party

In 1849, in response to Tammany Hall's growing power, nativist Americans formed the Know Nothing Party in New York City. It originated from a secret society called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. The party got its name because when outsiders questioned its members, they were instructed to say "I know nothing." The party widened its reach across the United States. By 1854 and 1855, it had won 52 seats in Congress, elected the mayors of Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, and controlled the Massachusetts state legislature. Bill was one of the earliest leaders of the party and was instrumental in organising its members to vote against Irish Catholics. The Bowery Boys served as the party's street-level enforcers, intimidating opposition voters on election days.

William Poole vs. John Morrissey

Bill's arch-rival was John "Old Smoke" Morrissey, an Irish immigrant born in County Tipperary who'd arrived in New York as a child. Like Bill, he was a tall, tough bare-knuckle boxer who'd won the American Heavyweight Championship in 1852, making him one of America's first internationally famous sporting figures. He worked as an emigrant runner for Tammany Hall, meeting newcomers at the docks and helping them find jobs in exchange for their votes. He was also a shoulder-hitter on election days, protecting Irish voters from Bowery Boys interference.

In the 1854 mayoral election, Bill and John stood against each other, defending their respective voters from each other's meddling. The election went to the Tammany Hall candidate. In the same year, Bill and John locked horns in an eagerly awaited boxing bout at the foot of Amos Street, on the pier, at seven in the morning. It was knowingly scheduled in Bowery Boys territory, and Morrissey ended up at the wrong end of Poole's supporters. He was badly beaten. John's followers protested that some of Bill's supporters had intervened during the match. Nonetheless, the loss led to John starting to plot his revenge.

William Poole Dies

Within a year of the boxing duel, John conspired to have Bill killed. On February 25, 1855, Bill and John ran into each other at Stanwix Hall, a saloon at 579 Broadway. They threw insults at each other and came to blows. When the authorities arrived, they took both men to different police stations but released them without charges.

Later that night, Bill returned to the bar. Waiting for him were Tammany Hall enforcers Jim Turner and Lewis Baker. The New York Daily Tribune reported what followed: "Turner advanced, pistol in hand, when Poole said, 'Don't murder me!' Turner then fired at Poole, hit him in the knee, and Poole fell instantly. Baker then jumped upon him, and drawing a six-barrelled revolver, said, with an oath, 'Now I have you, and will put you out of the way.' He then fired in quick succession twice at the prostrate man, the balls entering his left breast near the region of the heart."

Baker fled the city and boarded a ship for the Canary Islands. Private citizens, outraged on Poole's behalf, funded a clipper ship to chase him down. Baker was arrested at sea off Tenerife and brought back to New York. He was tried three times for the murder of William Poole. Each trial ended in a hung jury. Baker walked free.

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

"I Die a True American"

Bill the Butcher didn't die immediately. With a bullet lodged near his heart, he clung to life for nearly two weeks, to the astonishment of his doctors, who declared it unnatural for a man to linger so long in such a condition. Fellow Bowery Boys sat at his bedside and relayed bulletins to crowds gathered in the street below. On March 8, 1855, aged 33, his strength finally gave out.

His last words, spoken to those at his bedside, were: "Goodbye, boys. I die a true American." One account adds that he also said: "What grieves me most is thinking that I've been murdered by a set of Irish." The New York Times later reported both versions. Green-Wood Cemetery, where he is buried in Brooklyn, unveiled a new granite monument in 2003 bearing the famous last words, after Scorsese's film renewed public interest in his story.

The Funeral

Bill's funeral was one of the most remarkable public spectacles New York had seen. His coffin was draped in an American flag and placed on a horse-drawn hearse. On the side of the hearse, in large letters, were printed his final words: "I die a true American." A procession of 155 carriages and an estimated 6,000 mourners wound through Lower Manhattan toward the ferry to Brooklyn. Local politicians, volunteer firemen, a 52-piece band, and members of the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner were all in attendance. People lined the streets and climbed onto rooftops to watch. The weight of mourners on one building was so great that part of it collapsed, killing four of them.

The New York Herald, covering the event with barely concealed discomfort, wrote: "Public honors on a most magnificent scale were paid to the memory of a pugilist, a man whose past life has in it much to condemn and very little to commend." The Know Nothing movement had its first martyr, and they intended to use him.

The Legacy

Morrissey went on to open several Irish pubs and accumulated a fortune of $1.5 million. He served two terms as a New York state senator and two more as a Congressman. He died in 1878. Bill the Butcher was largely forgotten until the publication of Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York in 1928, and then genuinely forgotten again until Martin Scorsese adapted it in 2002. Daniel Day-Lewis's portrayal, renamed William Cutting, is a brilliant performance built around a real man whose actual history is, in some ways, stranger and more disturbing than the film's version. The historical Poole died in 1855. The fictional Cutting is still alive in 1862, leading gangs during the Draft Riots. The film's climax, a gang battle that's really a commentary on the Civil War, has nothing to do with the real Poole, who was dead seven years before it.

The Know Nothing movement that Bill championed didn't disappear after his death. It transformed. Similar nativist arguments about immigration, Catholic influence, and national identity resurfaced in the 1890s, the 1920s, and at regular intervals since. As one historian put it, "He shouldn't be treated like a hero; he is, though, a historical figure." His grave at Green-Wood is now a tourist destination. The Dead Rabbits, the gang his Bowery Boys spent a decade fighting, have their own dedicated following. And the riot of July 4, 1857 that was the violent peak of their rivalry happened more than two years after Bill was already dead and buried.