Sadie FarrellO'Kane, James M. ''The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters, Ethnicity and the American Dream''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1994. (pg. 49, 52); (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1869) was an alleged semi- folklorish American criminal, gang leader and river pirate known under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

Sadie the Goat.

Criminal career

She is believed to have been a vicious street mugger in New York's "Bloody" Fourth Ward. Upon encountering a lone traveler, she would

headbutt A headbutt is a targeted strike with the head, typically (when intentional) involving the use of robust parts of the headbutter's cranium as the area of impact. The most effective headbutts strike the most sensitive areas of an opponent, such as ...

like a charging

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

a man in the stomach, and her male accomplice would hit the victim with a

slungshot A slungshot is a maritime tool consisting of a weight, or "shot", affixed to the end of a long cord often by being wound into the center of a knot called a "monkey's fist". It is used to cast line from one location to another, often mooring line. ...

and then rob him. Sadie, according to popular underworld lore, was engaged in a long-time feud with a tough, six-feet-tall female bouncer known as Gallus Mag, who finally bit off Sadie's ear in a bar fight, as Mag was known to do, albeit usually with male trouble-makers. Asbury, Herbert. ''The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1928), pp. 58-60; Batterberry, Michael. ''On the Town in New York: The Landmark History of Eating, Drinking, and Entertainments from the American Revolution to the Food Revolution''. Routledge, 1998. (pg. 105); Jones, David E. ''Women Warriors: A History''. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's Inc. (2005), pp. 240-41; English, T.J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins (2005), p. 19; Folklore has it that, leaving the area in disgrace, she ventured to the waterfront area in West Side Manhattan. It was while wandering the dockyards in the spring of 1869 that she witnessed members of the Charlton Street Gang unsuccessfully attempting to board a small

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

anchored in mid-river. Watching the men being driven back across the river by a handful of the ship's crew, she offered her services to the men and became the gang's leader. Within days, she engineered the successful hijacking of a larger sloop Mushabac, Jane, and Angela Wigan. ''A Short and Remarkable History of New York City''. Chicago: Fordham University Press (1999), p 60; and, with ''"the

Jolly Roger Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the flags flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century (the later part of the Golden Age of Piracy). The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly ...

flying from the masthead"'', she and her crew reputedly sailed up and down the

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

and

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyte ...

s raiding small villages, robbing farm houses and riverside mansions, and occasionally kidnapping men, women, and children for ransom. She was said to have made several male prisoners ''" walk the plank"''. She and her men continued their activities for several months and stashed their cargo in several hiding spots until they could be gradually disposed of through

fences A fence is a barrier enclosing or bordering a field, yard, etc., usually made of posts and wire or wood, used to prevent entrance, to confine, or to mark a boundary. Fence or fences may also refer to: Entertainment Music * Fences (band), an Amer ...

and

pawn shop A pawnbroker is an individual or business (pawnshop or pawn shop) that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as collateral. The items having been ''pawned'' to the broker are themselves called ''pledges'' or ...

s along the Hudson and

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

s. By the end of the summer, the farmers had begun resisting the raids, attacking landing parties with gunfire. The group abandoned the sloop and Sadie returned to the Fourth Ward, where she was now known as the ''"Queen of the Waterfront"''. She then claimed to have made a truce with Gallus Mag, who returned Sadie's ear. Mag had displayed it in a pickled jar in the bar. Sadie kept the ear in a locket and wore it around her neck for the rest of her life.

Criminal career

See also

References

Further reading