The Daybreak Boys were the most treacherous assassins to prowl the docks on the East Side of Manhattan. When they formed their elegant little group in the late 1840s, there were said to be three dozen members, none of them older than twenty. Some of the Daybreak Boys were as young as ten, but lack of age never meant a shortage of violence.
The first leaders of the Daybreak Boys were Nicholas Saul and William Howlett, who were sixteen and fifteen respectively when they took control of the gang. Other notable members were killers like Slobbery Jim, Sow Madden, Cow-legged Sam McCarthy, and Patsy the Barber. All the gang members were rumored to have committed at least one murder and dozens of robberies before their sixteenth birthday. Police said The Daybreak Boys did not just murder in the course of a robbery, but also for the sheer ecstasy of doing it, even if there was no hope of cashing in on a score. Police estimated that in the three years that Saul and Howlett were their leaders, the Daybreak Boys stole more than $100,000 and killed about forty people.
The Daybreak Boys’ base of operations was Slaughter House Point, owned by Pete Williams, located at the intersection of James and Water Street. On August 25, 1852, a passing policeman looked toward Slaughter House Point and saw Saul and Howlett huddled in a corner, with a low-level gang member, Bill Johnson, who was half drunk. The policeman suspected that they were up to no good and decided to stop by later. When he did, the three men were gone. In the dark, they took a rowboat and sailed up the East River to a ship named the William Watson, intending to steal valuables they heard were on board. They were met by night watchman Charles Baxter, and shot Baxter dead on the spot. Thinking the shot would attract attention, they jumped from the William Watson’s boat, empty-handed, and rowed back to shore.
The policeman who had seen them earlier saw the rowboat dock and watched as Saul and Howlett dragged Johnson, who was now totally drunk, out of the boat and towards Slaughter House Point. Soon after, the body of the night watchman was found, and a group of twenty policemen, armed to the hilt, rampaged through Slaughter House Point. After a long and bloody battle, in which about twenty Daybreak Boys attempted to thwart the arrest of his three men, Saul, Howlett, and Johnson were finally arrested. After a short trial, Johnson was sentenced to life in prison, but Saul and Howlett received the death penalty. On January 28, 1853, Saul and Howlett were hanged in the Tombs prison yard. Saul was barely twenty years old and Howlett was a year younger.
After Saul and Howlett died, Slobbery Jim took over the Daybreak Boys. But he soon had to go on the run after he beat up his old friend Patsy the Barber. In 1857 The Daybreak Boys continued their decline. The Slaughter House Point, which was the base of his operations for a decade, with a little help from the New York City Police Department, finally closed its doors. In 1858, more than a dozen gang members were killed in shootouts with police and the newly created Harbor Patrol. Dozens of others were arrested and sent to jail. In 1859, the Daybreak Boys basically ceased to exist, as the remaining members joined other gangs in the Bowery and Five Points areas.
