Tom Flaherty, more commonly known under his
pseudonym Old Flaherty, (born c. 1824) was an American criminal, sneak thief and river pirate in
New York City during the mid-to late 19th century. He was the patriarch of a criminal family in New York's Seventh Ward which terrorized the New York waterfront in the post-
American Civil War era.
[Sutton, Charles; James B. Mix and Samuel A. Mackeever, ed. ''The New York Tombs: Its Secrets and Its Mysteries. Being a History of Noted Criminals, with Narratives of Their Crimes''. San Francisco: A. Roman & Co., 1874. (pg. 481)] Flaherty was described as having ''"long white whiskers and a benevolent smile, but he was one of the most cruel thugs of the Seventh Ward"''.
[ Asbury, Herbert. ''The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. (pg. 77) ]
Flaherty was considered a powerful underworld figure in his day, one of his criminal associates being
Bum Mahoney
Bum or bums may refer to:
Slang
* Buttocks, two rounded portions of the anatomy on the posterior of the pelvic region of many bipeds or quadrupeds
* A lazy person
* A homeless person
*Bum a cigarette or a "smoke", meaning to borrow
Places
* B ...
of the
Patsy Conroy
Patrick Conway (c. 1846– ????), commonly known by his alias Patsy or Patsy Conroy, was an American burglar and river pirate. He was the founder and leader of the Patsy Conroy Gang, a gang of river pirates active on the New York waterfron ...
and
Hook Gang
The Hook Gang was a street gang, and later a band of river pirates, active in New York City in the 1860s and 1870s. The gang was prominent in the Fourth Ward and Corlear's Hook districts immediately after the American Civil War, until their br ...
s, while he and another young river pirate, James Smith, stole boats from the waterfront and sail to
South Brooklyn. From there, they would sail upriver raiding ''"farm houses, hen-roosts, canal boats, or anything else that came in their way"''. He and Smith were eventually arrested by Brooklyn Police and sentenced to five years on
Blackwell's Island around 1874. His wife, herself a well-known
shoplifter and
pickpocket, followed him soon after. Their youngest son was sentenced to 15 years in
Sing Sing for
garroting and
highway robbery while the oldest, leaving New York for the frontier, was sentenced to ten years in
Illinois State Prison
Joliet Correctional Center (originally known as Illinois State Penitentiary, colloquially as Joliet Prison, Joliet Penitentiary, the Old Joliet Prison, and the Collins Street Prison) was a prison in Joliet, Illinois, United States, from 1858 to ...
for
burglary
Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flaherty, Tom
1820s births
Year of death missing
Criminals from New York City
Criminals from Manhattan