The recent terrible affray between Lane and his gang and the Flynns, and their gang which, beginning in “bad blood” three years ago, culminated at last in three murders at Hot Springs, suggests one fact which I have often seen illustrated. Sports and gamblers, as a class, are more bitter and dangerous in their hates, as well as more sincere and deep and practical in their friendships, than most men. There is no nonsense about sportin’ men in their personal relations. Gamblers are like women in one respect–when they love each other they love with all their heart and soul, and when they hate each other they hate with all their soul and heart.
John Morrissey had some very warm and devoted friends, like McCormick and Ben Wood and Charlie Reed, and he made some very bitter enemies like John C. Heenan, at one time, and Andy Sheehan, George Hill and John Chamberlain all the time.
Andy Sheehan, who is still alive and is the sportin’ king of Coney Island in the summer time, always disliked Morrissey from the start. Some men have an instinctive aversion to each other that nothin’ can overcome, and Morrissey and Sheehan had just precisely one of these instinctive aversions. For a while Andy Sheehan thought he was a pugilist and that John Morrissey wasn’t. He used to laugh at the stories about Morrissey’s pluck and darin’ and said they were all brag or bogus.
And one time Andy and John from hard words got to hard blows and pummeled each other on the sidewalk on the corner of Houston street and Broadway, in the presence of a number of the sportin’ fraternity. The mill wasn’t fought according to the rules of the P.R.; it was a rough and tumble fight like that of Poole and Morrissey, but it was bitterly contested, with hate takin’ the place of science, and probably one or the other, or both, of the combatants would have been seriously injured if the police had not interfered, and, arresting both parties, took ‘em to the Eighth ward station house, where they were locked up over night to cool off.
This row only incensed the bad blood between the two men and between their respective friends, as both sides claimed whatever victory there was, and several minor fights grew out of this first free fight.
Finally a few mutual friends took the matter in hand and try to patch up a peace between the parties. Conspicuous among those friends was Tom Shedd, who was, and still is, a character in his way. At one time Tom Shedd was a leadin’ sportin’ man of New York, like John Chamberlain later. Tom was always a rather good looking fellow–quite gentlemanly, a polished talker and a good dresser. He had received a fair education, supplemented by a large experience of the world, and was liberal in his expenditures, large in his ideas and square in his dealin’s.
He was fond of theatrical people, and was at one time the guardian of a popular little actress, whom he befriended in the most disinterested manner. He kept a big game on Broadway near the Grand Central Hotel, and gave splendid suppers.
He was one of those “smart” fellows who didn’t believe in takin’ in everything and giving out nothin’, and he often lent money to his patrons. But in every case but one he always got his money returned, and came out way ahead. He was a “conservative,” too, and never talked against anybody, so he stood midway between the different factions of the sports–friends to ‘em all.
Consequently, in pursuance of his usual conciliatory policy, Shedd tried hard to induce Sheehan and Morrissey to come together. To Morrissey he talked about how he could afford in his political and pecuniary success to be magnanimous to Sheehan, and to Sheehan he talked about how foolish it was to keep spite against a man who could be of such future help to him as Morrissey. So at last one Saturday night, with a big flourish and fuss and in the presence of a big crowd of sports, Andy Sheehan and John Morrissey met at Shedd’s place–where McCurdy was interested–shook hands and had a bottle of wine together. Shedd had been working for this result for four weeks, but the reconciliation didn’t last four hours.
That very night, Morrissey, Sheehan and the rest started off to Matt Green’s, on Fourteenth street and Fourth avenue, and in the course of talk the two men differed about somethin’. Neither would give in, and the difficulty became aggravated afterwards in the course of a game of faro. Sheehan began to tongue-lash Morrissey, and the “era of good feelin’” came to an untimely end.
George Hill ran an opposition game to Morrissey at Saratoga, and the rival gamblers hated each other fearfully. Hill had a cozy place on the Lelands’ grounds at the Grand Union, and boasted that John Morrissey would never dare cross its threshold; or, if he did, that he would never leave it alive.
Morrissey never “took the dare.” George Hill was perhaps the only man John Morrissey ever feared. Hill was not much at threatenin’, but he would certainly have tried to fulfill his promise had Morrissey crossed his path, which Morrissey very wisely never did. In most points George Hill was a good fellow and a gentleman; but, as far as John Morrissey was concerned, he had murder in his heart.
As for John Chamberlain, who was just the opposite to George Hill, a genial, pleasant, even-tempered fellow, Morrissey and he were brought together here in New York by Price McGrath, a Kentucky tailor turned sport, who, after escapin’ from Butler in New Orleans, opened in conjunction with ‘em a big game near the Hoffman House. But Morrissey’s rough ways were not as popular with the uptown sports as John Chamberlain’s politeness and smilin’ suavity, and Morrissey got jealous of his too-agreeable partner. They also differed about matters of business, and to crown it all Price McGrath sided with Chamberlain.
All this enraged Morrissey terribly, and he swore he would run John Chamberlain out of New York. But he didn’t. New York was wide enough for both men.
And Price McGrath and Chamberlain started a successful opposition game to Morrissey’s, and took away a good deal of the latter’s custom.
Marcus Cicero Stanley rented a house to John Chamberlain, and then there arose a difficulty between the two men about money matters. Meanwhile Chamberlain and McGrath opened the Club House at Long Branch, now run by Phil Daly, and started the Monmouth Park race course.
George Wilkes was then very friendly with John Chamberlain, and used to spend his summer vacation as Chamberlain’s guest at the Club House. But one day Chamberlain ordered one of Wilkes’ reporters off his race track. Wilkes took the man’s part. Chamberlain resented Wilkes’ course, and a terrible quarrel arose between the two men, in which, although no blood flowed, printer’s ink was spent freely.
Stanley sided with Wilkes in this quarrel, and then Eph Simmons got angry at Stanley, and a newspaper and pamphlet war of the most bitter description was waged between Wilkes and Stanley on one side and Simmons and Chamberlain on the other.
The ultimate result was the withdrawal both of Wilkes and Chamberlain from public life a while and the subsidence of Marcus Cicero Stanley. Ben Wood and John Morrissey were also indirectly concerned in this memorable quarrel; a quarrel, which, had it taken place in the South or West, would have ended in a tragedy.
The still well-remembered Sharkey-Dunn feud, which resulted in the shootin’ of Dunn by Sharkey, was the outcome of a gamblin’ difficulty. Sharkey, though a professional pickpocket, was in his time and way a man of “influence,” prominent in Eighth ward politics and the Fifth Congressional District. He organized the Sharkey Guard, which used to meet at the corner of Houston and Wooster streets, and once ran for Assistant Alderman, though, of course, he was defeated with such antecedents. Robert S. Dunn had the alias of Bob Isaacs. He had a berth in the Comptroller’s office, and also dealt faro bank, on Fulton street, I think.
Sharkey ran a game once himself and lost money by it; then he backed Dunn, or Isaac’s, in the game and lost more money. this embittered him against Dunn, and the two men meetin’ one Sunday in Charles Harvey’s “place” in Hudson Street, an altercation arose about money, both men bein’ under the influence of liquor, and both having just come from attending the funeral of James Reilly, a member of the Michael Norton Association. Dunn’s words fired Sharkey and in hot blood and under the influence of liquor he shot and killed Dunn. His subsequent escape from the Tombs, through the aid of Maggie Jordan, in female attire, and his escape to Cuba, are matters familiar to all. He is said to be still livin’ and flourishin’ in Mexico. Maggie Jordan is also said to be still livin’ in this city quietly with some respectable relatives. Sharkey seems to have some friends left in New York still, who claim that he never meant to kill Dunn, and that he never ill-treated the woman who so devotedly loved and saved him, Maggie Jordan.
The notorious Billy Mulligan was employed occasionally by desperate gamblers to do their fightin’. Most of his quarrels, however, were on his own account. He was concerned in three duels as principal, in six fights and was arrested nine times. He tried once to “clean out” a gamblin’ saloon on Broadway but was cleaned out himself by the police.
Like Billy McGlory, he was to the last moment confident that no one really dare punish him. He defied the law, and laughed at it afterwards. Bail was furnished him, and he was advised to forfeit his bail and vanish. But he was so confident of his “influence” that he stayed out of bravado, and was sent to State’s prison. After this the town became comparatively quiet.
Ben Hogan in his time was engaged in many quarrels about gamblin’ with gamblers. In these quarrels he killed three men in self-defense–Baldy, a southerner; Reddy, an Englishman, and a friend of Reddy’s. Hogan and the Shay brothers were for years rivals, and did all they could to injure one another. The Shay brothers preferred lawsuits, however, to pistols, and no blood followed in their fights.
Pat Hearn, in his day the prince of New York gamblers, kept out of fights on principle. He used to say, “Gold beats lead every time,” and he was right. He bought off his rivals, he staked the police liberally, “came down handsomely” whenever he had to, and altho’ by this system of givin’ in and givin’ up he lost one third of his gains, he saved the other two-thirds–and saved his life in the bargain. He died leavin’ his widow over thirty thousand dollars.
The shootin’ of Richardson, a sport and a United States marshal, by Cora, a noted gambler, was the sensation of its time, years ago, as, was at the period of its occurrence, the shooting of Bryant, the gambler, by Col. Tate.
Cora was afterwards hung by a vigilance committee. He always claimed, up to the last moment, that Richardson had commenced the attack upon him first. Col. Tate was tried and acquitted. It seems that Bryant made a motion of his hand towards his hip pocket, which Tate naturally took for granted meant that Bryant was goin’ to draw his pistol on him, whereupon he fired first.
Perhaps the case of all most clearly resemblin’ the recent Flynn-Lane feud was that of George Trussell, hailin’ from the same Yankee State as Jim Fiske. Trussell got in with the police– was in fact a member of the secret police, I am told–and staked the authorities liberally. On that account he was protected in his game and was able to shut up rival gamin’ houses.
But the opposition gamblers got more than even with him in a very peculiar but effective way. Trussell had a mistress, a beautiful but desperate woman, who was very jealous of him. He gave her cause, and one of the gamblers who had been “frozen out” by Trussell gave her points about this “cause.” The maddened woman drove to Trussell’s place, and receivin’ only an insultin’ reply from him, waited for him and shot him dead. Thus in the strange workings of that strange thing we call fate, a woman’s jealous vengeance was used to pay off old gamblers’ scores.
[Editor’s notes: The Lane and Flynn feud referred to in the opening paragraph relates to the conflicts over gambling rights in the boom tourist town of Hot Springs, Arkansas in the 1880s. See: The Flynn-Doran War entry in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
George Trussell’s murder was as described above, but was a Chicago crime. The murder inquest reveals the details:]
