Daybreak Boys

The Daybreak Boys was a New York street gang during the mid nineteenth century.

Formed in the late 1840s, by 1852 the teenage Daybreak Boys were suspected by police to have been responsible for 20 to 40 murders between 1850 and 1852 as well as stealing goods estimated at $200,000. The gang was said to have a prospective member kill at least one man as a requirement for joining. Newspapers at the time report, perhaps with some exaggeration, that many gang members may have been as young as 12. Under the leadership of members such as Nicholas Saul, Bill Howlett, Patsy the Barber, Slobbery Jim, "Cowlegged" Sam McCarthy, and Sow Madden the gang was known for its reputation of unprovoked murder and sabotaging ships and other property, regardless of value, along the New York waterfront. The gang's actions would soon force police to take action against them. Led by New York police officers Blair, Spratt, and Gilbert, over 12 gang members were killed in several gunfights in 1858. By the end of 1859 the gang, having lost much of its membership, was eventually broken up. Many of its members later became prominent criminals during the next several decades.

Famous quotes containing the words daybreak and/or boys:

    Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown.
    Paul Celan [Paul Antschel] (1920–1970)

    In time, after a dozen years of centering their lives around the games boys play with one another, the boys’ bodies change and that changes everything else. But the memories are not erased of that safest time in the lives of men, when their prime concern was playing games with guys who just wanted to be their friendly competitors. Life never again gets so simple.
    Frank Pittman (20th century)