Free Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set by Joe Bruno Page A

Hall titans like Moses Johnson, Paul Hedle, Warden Hayward, and Alexander Ming Jr.  There it was decided that two businesses in particular - Hart and Company on Washington Street, and SH. Herrick & Company on Coenties Slip - were packed with both flour and wheat, and were holding back distribution, hoping for future monetary gain when the prices rose.
    One of the speakers said, “Fellow citizens, Mr. Eli Hart has 53,000 barrels of flour in his store. Let us go there and offer him $8 a barrel, and if he does not take it......”
    The speaker stopped in mid-sentence, but his implication was clear.
    When the talking was over, the crowd stampeded from City Hall Park, and they headed down Broadway, west on Cortland and onto Washington Street. When the watchmen protecting Hart's Store saw the surging mob, they quickly ran inside, and they locked the three huge iron doors. But they forgot to insert the inside bar on the center door.
    Eli Hart was viewing the mob unrest from a safe distance, and he immediately ran to City Hall, asking for police protection. Twenty policemen rushed to the scene, but they were beaten back by the rioters and their clubs taken away from them. The newly elected mayor of New York City, Aaron Clark, hurried up the steps of the store, and he tried to quell the angry mob. However, after he was showered with stones and bricks, Clark was forced to run for this life.
    The rioters then rushed into the building and wrenched one of the iron doors from its hinges. Using it as a battering ram, they bashed down the other two iron doors, then they busted inside. Once inside, the mob entered the storerooms, then rolled approximately 1,000 bushels of wheat and 500 barrels of flour into the street. They smashed the bushels and barrels, until thousands of rioters were knee deep in the flour and wheat.
    People started to sing, “Here goes flour at eight dollars a barrel!”

Women filled their apron and skirts with flour, while men used their hats and pockets to pilfer the goods. Even young children got into the act, scooping up what they could carry on their frail bodies.
    Suddenly, the 27th Regiment of the National Guard arrived, and they confronted the rioters. Using bayonets and clubs, the National Guard stabbed and clubbed as many rioters as they could lay their hands on. Eventually, they captured scores of the worst offenders, and they started marching them to the Tombs Prison. However, before they got very far, more rioters attacked the National Guard, and they rescued dozens of prisoners, and in the process, tore the police commissioner's coat right off his back. Forty rioters were finally hustled to the Tombs, where they were tried and convicted, and sent to Sing Sing Prison.
    While the rioters carted off their dead and wounded from in front of Hart's store, another contingent headed to the store of S.H. Herrick & Company. There the mob smashed the doors and windows with stones and bats, and within ten minutes, they were able to destroy an additional 30 barrels of flour and 100 bushels of wheat.
    Then, without any apparent reason, the mob suddenly disbursed and headed back to their slums, their thirst for destruction finally sated.
    The very next day, the price of flour increased one dollar.
     
    G allus Mag
    Dating back to the 1700's, the waterfront of the 4 th Ward was a haven for robbers, killers, and pirates. Vicious gangs like the Daybreak Boys, Buckoos, Hookers, Swamp Angels, and Slaughter Houses, prowled the streets, robbing and murdering any poor fool with cash in their pockets who was stupid enough to wander into their sacred domain. Yet, the most feared denizen ever to set foot in the 4 th Ward of the mid-19 th Century was not a man, but an amazon woman named Gallus Mag.
    Gallus Mag was an Englishwoman who stood over 6-feet-tall. She was the bouncer at a Dover Street dive called the Hole-In-The-Wall Bar. The Hole-In-The-Wall Bar was originally built in 1794, and is now the site of the famed Bridge Cafe.