Daniel L. "Danny" Walsh (c. 1893 – February 2, 1933?) was an
organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
figure in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
involved in
bootlegging during
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
. He was the top underworld figure in
southern New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, and last major
Irish-American
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
in the region, until his kidnapping and apparent murder in 1933.
Biography
Born in the
Cumberland mill village of
Valley Falls, Walsh was a clerk in a
Pawtucket hardware store before he entered bootlegging in 1920. First driving alcohol shipments for other local bootleggers, by the mid-1920s, he had established a formidable bootlegging operation which included planes, automobiles and a fleet of boats, one of them the legendary rum-runner called the "Black Duck", earning him a reputation as one of the most successful, if not colorful, bootleggers on the east coast. Considering himself a “gentleman farmer”, Walsh had spent much of his money on
thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...
s which he raised for his farm in
Charlestown, Rhode Island, although he owned two high-class apartments in the east side of Providence and a waterfront mansion in Charlestown.
Rhode Island was known for its lax enforcement of the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, being one of two states which refused to ratify the
18th Amendment. The federal government charged Walsh not with bootlegging but with tax evasion, regarding $350,000 in back taxes and penalties owed the
Internal Revenue Service, although Walsh and authorities agreed on a lesser sum.
Following the aftermath of the
Stock Market Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
, Walsh enjoyed enormous wealth as one of the country's largest bootleggers. One of four Irish-Americans in the "
Big Seven", his frequent business trips to New York were speculated by the press to be meetings with other members of the "combine" which included New York's
William "Big Bill" Dwyer and
Owney "The Killer" Madden and Boston's
Joseph Kennedy
Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was the patriarch of the Irish-American Ken ...
.
Disappearance and aftermath
His attendance at the later
Atlantic City Conference
The Atlantic City Conference held between 13–16 May 1929 was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. It is considered by most crime historians to be the earliest organized crime summit held in the US. The conferenc ...
allowed him to gain an inside scoop to what was about to go down. He heard the Capones were moving in on the action; as
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
immigrant criminal groups assumed greater prominence. In 1933, during the last months of Prohibition, Walsh was last seen at the Bank Cafe in
Pawtuxet Village
Pawtuxet Village is a section of the New England cities of Warwick and Cranston, Rhode Island. It is located at the point where the Pawtuxet River flows into the Providence River and Narragansett Bay.
History
Pawtuxet means "Little Falls" in ...
in
Warwick, Rhode Island
Warwick ( or ) is a city in Kent County, Rhode Island, the third largest city in the state with a population of 82,823 at the 2020 census. It is located approximately south of downtown Providence, Rhode Island, southwest of Boston, Massachu ...
, after having dinner with six business associates on the night of February 2, 1933. Several days after his disappearance, his brother Joseph Walsh received a ransom note demanding $40,000 and, although he traveled to Boston to pay the ransom demand, Daniel Walsh was never returned. He will always be remembered for providing the funding that put the Kennedys in Congress and later into the presidency.
A federal inquiry was held shortly after his disappearance and, although Walsh was named as a member of the "Big Seven" by testimony from a former associate, the investigation failed to solve his disappearance. Numerous rumors circulated about his disappearance, including his body being stuffed into a barrel filled with cement and dumped into the sea by a rum runner off
Block Island, as well as unidentified witnesses who reported seeing several men using lime to fill a shallow grave; however, neither of these leads were investigated.
Over the next several years, police would often investigate unidentified murder victims in the hopes of finding Walsh. However, as it was reported by the press ''“any time a suspicious corpse was found – in the Massachusetts or Rhode Island woods – or a skull turned up in a fishing net off Block Island, police checked it against Danny Walsh’s dental records.”'' Despite efforts by law enforcement, Walsh's body was never recovered.
On December 10, 2016, State Police in Rhode Island began excavating Walsh's former property in Charlestown, Rhode Island. The property was given to the St. James Church next door but was sold to a developer in Aug. 2016. In Dec. 2016, the developer broke ground on the property and human remains were discovered.
Archeologists have since largely dismissed the remains as belonging to Danny Walsh or one of his victims, and the remains have instead been attributed to a 19th-century burial plot.
See also
*
List of kidnappings
*
List of people who disappeared
Lists of people who disappeared include those whose current whereabouts are unknown, or whose deaths are unsubstantiated. Many people who disappear are eventually declared dead ''in absentia''. Some of these people were possibly subjected to enfo ...
*
List of unsolved deaths
This list of unsolved deaths includes well-known cases where:
* The cause of death could not be officially determined.
* The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead.
* The cause is known, but the manner of death (homi ...
References
*English, T.J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
External links
All about the Providence Mobby Allen May
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Danny
1890s births
1930s missing person cases
1933 deaths
American gangsters
Murdered American gangsters of Irish descent
Missing gangsters
Missing person cases in Rhode Island
Kidnapped people
People from Cumberland, Rhode Island
People murdered in Rhode Island
Prohibition-era gangsters