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American Mobsters – The Daybreak Boys – The Most Treacherous Murderers on Manhattan’s East Side Docks

The Daybreak Boys were the most treacherous killers to ever prowl the docks on the East Side of Manhattan. When they formed their elegant little group in the late 1840s, there were said to be three dozen members, none of them older than twenty. Some of the Daybreak Boys were as young as ten, but lack of age never meant a shortage of violence.

The first leaders of the Daybreak Boys were Nicholas Saul and William Howlett, who were sixteen and fifteen years old respectively when they took control of the gang. Other prominent members were assassins such as Slobbery Jim, Sow Madden, Cow-legged Sam McCarthy, and Patsy the Barber. Every member of the gang was rumored to have committed at least one murder and dozens of robberies before they were sixteen. Police said The Daybreak Boys not only murdered in the course of a robbery, but also out of the sheer ecstasy of doing so, even if there was no hope of profiting from a score. Police estimated that in the three years that Saul and Howlett were their leaders, the Daybreak Boys stole more than $ 100,000 and killed as many as 40 people.

The Daybreak Boys’ base of operations was Slaughter House Point, owned by Pete Williams, located at the intersection of James and Water Street. On August 25, 1852, a passing policeman looked around Slaughter House Point and saw Saul and Howlett huddled in a corner, with a low-level gang member, Bill Johnson, who was half drunk. The police officer suspected that they were up to no good and decided to come in later. When he did, the three men were gone. In the dark, they took a rowboat and sailed up the East River to a ship named William Watson, intending to steal the valuables they heard were on board. They were greeted by the night watchman Charles Baxter, and Baxter was killed on the spot. Thinking the shot would attract attention, they jumped off the William Watson’s ship, empty-handed, and rowed back to shore.

The policeman who had seen them before saw the rowboat dock and watched as Saul and Howlett dragged Johnson, who was now totally drunk, from the boat and carried him to Slaughter House Point. Shortly after, the body of the night watchman was found, and a group of twenty policemen, armed to the hilt, razed Slaughter House Point. After a long and bloody battle, in which a score of Daybreak Boys tried to thwart the arrest of their three men, Saul, Howlett and Johnson were finally arrested. After a short trial, Johnson was sentenced to life in prison, but Saul and Howlett received the death penalty. On January 28, 1853, Saul and Howlett were hanged in the Tombs prison yard. Saul was barely twenty and Howlett was a year younger.

After Saul and Howlett died, Slobbery Jim took over the Daybreak Boys. But he soon had to take it lightly after beating up his old friend Patsy the Barber. In 1857, The Daybreak Boys continued their decline. Slaughter House Point, which was the base of their operations for a decade, with a little suggestion from the New York City Police Department, finally closed its doors. In 1858, more than a dozen gang members were killed in shootings with the police and with the newly created Harbor Patrol. Dozens of others were arrested and sent to jail. In 1859, the Daybreak Boys basically ceased to exist, when their remaining members joined other gangs on the Bowery and the Five Points areas.

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