American Gangsters – Gallus Mag – The Wildest Woman New York City Police Have Ever Found

Dating back to the 1700s, the 4th Ward Boardwalk was a haven for thieves, murderers, and pirates. Vicious gangs like the Daybreak Boys, Buckoos, Hookers, Swamp Angels, and Slaughter Houses roamed the streets, robbing and murdering any poor cash-in-pocket fool who was stupid enough to roam their holy domains. However, the most feared inhabitant to ever set foot in the mid-19th century District 4 was not a man, but an Amazon named Gallus Mag.

Gallus Mag was an Englishwoman who was over six feet tall and she was the gorilla in a Dover Street bar called Hole-In-The Wall. The Hole-In-The-Wall was originally built in 1794 and is now the site of the famous Bridge Cafe. It was owned by one-armed Charlie Monell and ruled by Mag, who got his nickname “Gallus” because he kept her skirt from falling off with suspenders, or galluses, as they were called at the time. Mag stalked the bar looking for rioters, with a pistol stuck in his belt and a club strapped to his wrist. If someone was foolish enough to challenge his mettle, he would hit him with his club, then grit his ear with his teeth, drag him to the front door, and throw him in the gutter. If the boy sucked, she would bite his ear off and put it in a large alcohol bottle that she kept behind the bar; a kind of “Gallus Mag Trophy Case”. The New York City police of that time proclaimed Gallus Mag the most savage woman they had ever met.

Mag was challenged one day by another woman, Sadie the Goat, a member of the Charlton Street Gang. Sadie the Goat got her name because her preferred form of theft was to slam her head against her victim’s stomach, while her male partner would then nail the sucker to the head with a stone from a sling and then steal everything from him. its valid. One day at Hole-In-The-Wall, Sadie, three sheets in the wind, foolishly challenged Mag to a fight and was beaten to pulp. As was his custom, Mag cut off one of Sadie the Goat’s ears with his teeth and placed it in her favorite liquor jug ​​behind the bar. Sadie was glad to escape alive, and fled District 4 for the foreseeable future, to prowl the West Side docks.

Years later, having made a considerable amount of money doing her specialty on the streets of the West Side, Sadie returned to the Hole-In-The Wall and made her peace with Mag. Mag was so moved by Sadie’s gesture that she immediately He went into his liquor jug, removed Sadie’s severed ear, and returned to its rightful owner. Legend has it that Sadie was so happy about the return of her ear that she wore it in a locket around her neck until her last days.

In 1855, the law closed the Hole-In-The Wall after a series of seven murders were committed in the space of three months. There is no record of the year Mag’s disappearance, but her ghost is said to haunt the Bridge Café to this day.