Sadie, Be Mine! (Not)

Q. Can you tell me anything about a Hudson River pirate named Sadie the Goat?

A. Sadie was one of the most notorious female gangsters of Lower Manhattan in the 19th century, according to Herbert Asbury in “The Gangs of New York.” That roster included Hell-Cat Maggie, a loyal member of the Dead Rabbits gang who fought alongside them in Bowery brawls; Battle Annie, who led the Lady Gophers; and Gallus Mag, the 6-foot bouncer of a Water Street joint called the Hole-in-the-Wall, where she would drag troublemakers out by one ear  held in her clenched teeth.

Many of the worst criminals, and the dives and flophouses they haunted, were in the old Fourth Ward along the East River waterfront, where sailors were common prey.

In Asbury’s account, Sadie got her nickname from her habit of chatting up a likely mark, then butting him in the stomach; her male accomplice would knock him out, and they could rob him at leisure.

Sadie left the Fourth Ward after one of her ears ended up as a souvenir in Gallus Mag’s pickling jar. She joined the Charlton Street gang, the only significant gang to operate along the Hudson. Since the Hudson piers were better lighted and more closely guarded than those on the East River, the Charlton Street gang turned from waterfront theft to river piracy, most notoriously in the spring of 1869.