James T. Ellison born (c. 1861-1920s), better known as Biff Ellison, was a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
gangster affiliated with the
Five Points Gang
The Five Points Gang was a criminal street gang of primarily Irish-American origins, based in the Five Points of Lower Manhattan, New York City, during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Paul Kelly, born Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, was an It ...
and later a leader of the
Gopher Gang
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th-century New York street gang who counted among its members Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden, born in England of Irish ancestry. Based in the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gan ...
. He was noted for his propensity for physical violence as well as a dapper appearance that led ''The New York Times'' to describe him as "looking like a prosperous banker or broker" and contemporary chroniclers as "smooth-faced, high-featured, well-dressed, a Gangland cavalier" and "a fop in matters of dress".
Ellison was closely associated with gangster
Jack Sirocco during the wars against the
Eastman Gang
The Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until the early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Italian-American Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, best known as Paul Kell ...
during the early 1900s. In addition to running protection rackets that reputedly gained him a handsome annual income of somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000, Ellison owned or managed several bars and gambling establishments in New York City, including the gay bar and brothel Columbia Hall (aka
Paresis Hall Columbia Hall, commonly known as Paresis Hall, was a brothel and gay bar in New York City in the 1890s. Located on the Bowery near Cooper Union, the Hall was managed by James T. Ellison, and took its common nickname from a general term for syphil ...
) and an illegal pool hall occupying the basement of Ellison's residence at 231 East 14th Street. His nickname, ''Biff'', was a period synonym for "punch" or "hit", and it was coined in response to a youthful fight in which Ellison, then working as a bartender, knocked unconscious a customer who refused to pay for a beer. He was also known as ''Young Biff'', ''Fourteenth Street Biff'', and ''Biff Ellison II'' to distinguish him from Frank "Biff" Ellison (1850 — 1904), a minor Manhattan society figure who had been convicted of assault in 1893 and sent to
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of ...
prison.
Biff Ellison appears as a secondary character in the 1994 novel ''
The Alienist
''The Alienist'' is a crime novel by Caleb Carr first published in 1994 and is the first book in the Kreizler series. It takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, inc ...
'' by
Caleb Carr. Carr describes the gangster as homosexual and makes him the central figure in a colorful scene at the gay bar Columbia Hall.
Career
After moving from his native Maryland to New York City in the early 1880s, Ellison was employed as a bartender at a variety of establishments, notably Fat Flynn's (Barney Flynn's) and Pickerelle's, where he developed friendships that led to his career in the world of organized crime and
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 City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
. As one writer observed, "The politicians loved
llison for he was a valuable man around election time, the mere sight of his huge bulk being sufficient to prevent many an honest citizen exercising his right of franchise".
Ellison came to wider public notice in the summer of 1902 after assaulting a police officer, Detective Sergeant Jeremiah Murphy, at Henry Wulfer's Sharkey's, a
Fourteenth Street saloon that stood opposite
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 City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
. The officer was so severely beaten that he was hospitalized for two weeks yet Ellison escaped serious jail time. "The politicians closed the officer's mouth," an observer noted, "and opened Ellison's cell".
In February 1903 the police attempted to raid Ellison's pool hall on the parlor floor of his 231 East 14th Street address, but with no warrant in hand were refused entry by Ellison who was then discharged from police court the next day and boasted that his place would never be raided again. On March 27, 1903 the police of the 15th and 18th precincts came back, this time armed with a warrant, an axe and a sledge hammer and raided Ellison's pool hall. The haul netted thirty-two men but only Ellison was held along with his liquor dealer James Sullivan and two other employees. Ellison protested his club was a legitimate one but could produce no charter.
After
Jack Sirocco defected to the Eastman gang, Ellison came into conflict with the leader of the Five Pointers,
Paul Kelly, and in turn defected to the
Gopher Gang
The Gopher Gang was an early 20th-century New York street gang who counted among its members Goo Goo Knox, James "Biff" Ellison, and Owney Madden, born in England of Irish ancestry. Based in the Irish neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, the Gopher Gan ...
. Then, on November 23, 1905, he and three other men, including Pat "Razor" Riley and Jimmy Kelly, attempted to assassinate Paul Kelly at his New Brighton club on Great Jones Street, where he was drinking with bodyguards Pat "Rough House" Hogan and William James "Red" Harrington. Although Kelly escaped harm, Harrington was shot and his body dragged from the Paul Kelly Association rooms to the Little Naples (New Brighton Athletic Club) saloon below and thrown into the washroom. Ellison fled to Baltimore, though six years later he returned to New York City and was arrested on an outstanding bench warrant for manslaughter. While Ellison's motive never became clear, the press put forward several possible reasons why Ellison attacked Paul Kelly. One was retaliation for the shooting of Jack Sorocco outside Kelly's resort a few days prior over some 'stuffed ballots'. The second for the murder of "Eat-Em-Up"
Jack McManus, a friend of Ellison, and the third for Kelly failing to equitably distribute political campaign money of which he had custody in the district.
The gangster was tried before the Criminal Branch of the New York Supreme Court in 1911. Around fifty members of the Jimmy Kelly gang and seventy-five members of the Five Points gang were in attendance during the proceedings. Concerned their presence might influence the verdict, they were later forced to leave. During the trial Ellison threatened a court officer as well as prosecutors, stating that if he were found guilty he would not rest " ... until those prosecuting guys has got theirs." Ultimately the only witness who identified Ellison, not Riley, as the shooter was Hogan, identified as "a reformed gangster" in a newspaper article about the end of the trial. Though Ellison had been promised his Tammany Hall connections would ensure he escaped prosecution, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter on June 8, 1911, and sentenced to serve eight to 20 years at
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of ...
prison.
Death
James "Biff" Ellison reportedly became mentally unstable during his imprisonment and was committed to an asylum where he died in the 1920s.
[Jay Robert Nash, ''The Great Pictorial History of World Crime'' (Scarecrow Press, 2004), page 474]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellison, James T.
1861 births
1920s deaths
1911 crimes in the United States
Five Points Gang