The Ax Murders of Saxtown by Nicholas J. C. Pistor

Author:Nicholas J. C. Pistor [Pistor, Nicholas J. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2014-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

No foreign hands can we allow to hold

the helm of State, or offices of gold

No base born serf, to trample on the ground,

Or holy principle, by which we’re bound . . .

Here let them have the blessings of our law,

Let justice shield them, and let justice awe,

But let them not presume beyond to go,

And teach Americans what they should know;

Let not our country in their hands be given,

And thus betray the trust received from Heaven.

With that as his guiding spirit, the Butcher led a local group called the True American Party, part of a nativist movement known as the Know Nothings that stoked fear of the foreign-born. Former president Millard Fillmore, who struggled to find a political party after the Whigs disintegrated over slavery, was among its followers. (In 1856 Fillmore won the party’s presidential nomination.)

A pamphlet for the Know Nothings warned that “hundreds of thousands of German Papists are preparing to come to the United States. So great is the desire of the Belgian population to emigrate to America that a Belgian paper says: ‘The authorities are determined to ship all her poorest class here.’”

Many American-born Protestants didn’t want Europe’s scraps—Irish, German, whatever. They considered them all to be trash, just like the tobacco juice and bad cabbage that littered the streets.

Still, the Butcher appeared the most enraged by the Irish. He spent his time collecting votes for his party, which often led to barroom brawls with Irish opponents, particularly those supporting the city’s growing political machine known as Tammany Hall, which sought to maximize Irish votes at the ballot box. He never engaged in a formal prizefight but was known as a “rough and tumbler,” ready to throw down—biting, brawling, gouging—at any moment.

In February 1855 the Butcher ran into John Morrissey at Stanwix Hall, a bar on lower Broadway. The Butcher had been feuding with the young Irish-born prizefighter and Tammany operative.

“You’re an Irish son of a bitch!” the Butcher shouted.

“You’re a black-muzzled American son of a bitch!” Morrissey responded.

Morrissey pointed a pistol at the Butcher and pulled the trigger twice. Click. Click. The gun didn’t fire. The two left the bar. The Butcher returned later and ran into some of Morrissey’s cohorts. One of them threw off his cloak, grabbed a revolver, and fired it but accidentally shot himself. He fired another shot and hit the Butcher in the leg. As the Butcher stumbled and swayed, another man in the gang shot the Butcher in the heart. The men fled.

The Butcher, unwilling to go down without a fight, grabbed a carving knife and chased after them, only to collapse at the barroom’s door. He was taken to his home on Christopher Street, where he survived for fourteen days, going in and out of consciousness. A few moments before he died, he declared, “I think I am a goner. If I die, I die a true American; and what grieves me most is thinking I’ve been murdered by a set of Irish.”

The Stelzriedes couldn’t have missed the Butcher’s

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