Career
After moving from his native Maryland to New York City in the early 1880s, Ellison was employed as a bartender at a variety of establishments, notably Fat Flynn's and Pickerelle's, where he developed friendships that led to his career in the world of organized crime and Tammany Hall. As one writer observed, "The politicians loved, for he was a valuable man around election time, the mere sight of his huge bulk being sufficient to prevent many an honest citizen exercising his right of franchise".
Ellison came to wider public notice in the summer of 1901 after assaulting a police officer, Detective Sergeant Jeremiah Murphy, at Wulfer's, a Fourteenth Street saloon that stood opposite Tammany Hall. The officer was so severely beaten that he was hospitalized for two weeks yet Ellison escaped serious jail time. "The politicians closed the officer's mouth," an observer noted, "and opened Ellison's cell".
After Paul Sirocco defected to the Eastman gang, Ellison came into conflict with the leader of the Five Pointers, Paul Kelly, and in turn defected to the Gopher Gang. Then, on November 23, 1909, he and three other men, including Razor Reilly and Jimmy Kelly, attempted to assassinate Paul Kelly at his New Brighton club on Great Jones Street, where he was drinking with bodyguards Pat "Rough House" Hogan and William James "Red" Harrington. Although Kelly escaped harm, Harrington was shot and killed, apparently by Reilly. Ellison fled to Baltimore, though two years later he returned to New York City and was arrested on an outstanding bench warrant for manslaughter.
The gangster was tried before the Criminal Branch of the New York Supreme Court in 1911. Around fifty members of the James Kelly gang and seventy-five members of the Five Points gang were in attendance during the proceedings. Concerned their presence might influence the verdict, they were later forced to leave. During the trial Ellison threatened a court officer as well as prosecutors, stating that if he were found guilty he would not rest " ... until those prosecuting guys has got theirs." Ultimately the only witness who identified Ellison, not Reilly, as the shooter was Hogan, identified as "a reformed gangster" in a newspaper article about the end of the trial. Though Ellison had been promised his Tammany Hall connections would ensure he would escape prosecution, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter on June 8, 1911, and sentenced to serve eight to 20 years at Sing Sing prison.
Read more about this topic: James T. Ellison
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)