No. 635
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 30, 2023

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

March 4, 2012
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Via Newspapers.comThis tale of a haunted British pub (there are a remarkable number of them) appeared in the “Regina Leader-Post,” July 26, 1930:GLOSSOP--A ghost that rings a bell on the tap-room table and hammers on the tap-room door, and other strange happenings, are mystifying the landlord of the Bull's Head, a 800-year-old public horse near Charlesworth. Mr. S. Onslow, the landlord, said that
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Strange Company - 11/29/2023
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Soapy Smith in Leadville, ColoradoJuly 21, 1880Soapy and partner, rear, between carriagesCourtesy Kyle Rosene collection(Click image to enlarge) Soapy Smith's stereo-view photographLeadville, Colorado, July 21, 1880Where was it taken?WHERE IN LEADVILLE WAS THIS TAKEN?(Click image to enlarge)     Those who have read Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel may recall seeing the
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 9/14/2023
On a busy day in 1951, a hot dog vendor found himself captive to a hawker of cheap jewelry who set up shop across from his rickety food cart decorated with American flags. Horses still worked the side streets of the city. Stray dogs waited for food scraps to fall to the pavement. TV antennas […]
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Ephemeral New York - 11/27/2023
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
James L. Daniels returned to Hillman, Alabama, from a trip to Birmingham, the night of December 26, 1890. While he was there, he purchased a hideous mask and thought it would be a good joke to put on the mask and frighten the family of his brother-in-law, Joe Tarpley. He knocked on their door and Tarpley answered. Not knowing it was Daniels, Tarpley told the masked man to go away. Instead,
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/25/2023
On October 16, 1900, the Fall River Daily Herald reported an incident at Maplecroft. Lizzie took a tumble from a step ladder while adjusting a picture on the wall. Dr. Stephen Masury Gordon set the broken wrist. Dr. Gordon lived at 165 Rock St. and was a Harvard graduate. One has to wonder why Lizzie did not have one of the servants or her handy man doing the chore. Dr. Gordon
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 10/12/2023
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Being Initiated. | Their Name a Misnomer.

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

Third Degree

Thomas Byrnes and his men giving a suspect the "third degree."

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The nineteenth century saw the rise of the professional detective, both public and private, as a leading figure in the fight against crime. On a city police force, it was no longer sufficient for an officer to grab a ne’er-do-well off the street and throw him into jail, he must also gather the evidence and testimony needed to convict the perpetrator. The force needed men—and sometimes women—with the ability to read clues and follow the trails of a criminal class growing ever more sophisticated at eluding detection. In the private sector as well, agencies sprang up to provide these services to those who, for whatever their reason, were not interested in making their investigations public.

The National Night Stick begins a series of post on The Great Detectives, with New York City Police Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes, who, almost singlehandedly transformed the department from a collection of club wielding thugs to a modern, efficient crime fighting organization. Under Byrnes’s leadership, police procedures were standardized and criminal information was stored systematically; the New York City Police became the model for police departments throughout the country.

Thomas Byrnes became a police patrolman in 1863, and that same year he distinguished himself during the New York City draft riots.  He rose through the ranks on the strength of his outstanding arrest records and in 1872 became Captain of the Fifteenth Precinct. During this period, Thomas Byrnes led the investigations of a number of famous New York City crimes: the murder of Jim Fisk, the murder of Maud Merrill, the Manhattan Savings Institution robbery. When the first detective bureau of the New York City Police Department was established, Thomas Byrne was made chief inspector.

Rogues Gallery
"Rogues Gallery"

The core of Byrnes’s crime solving success was the employment of extreme interrogation methods, known as “the third degree,” to extract information. With two of his men holding the suspect, Byrnes would put on a leather glove and beat the man—in places where the bruise would not show—until he revealed the required information. He would also employ deception and run undercover operations, sometimes using ex-prostitutes to obtain information. No criminal passed through the New York Police Department without being photographed, and Inspector Byrnes maintained a "Rogues Gallery" of mug shots, and a private museum of burglary tools and weapons.

Thomas F. Byrnes

Thomas Byrnes was also a master of self-promotion. In 1886 he published the photographs of more than 200 criminals along with brief biographies of each and explanations of various criminal techniques in his book Professional Criminals of America. The book was ostensibly for the benefit of police departments throughout America, but it became popular with the public and has been reprinted numerous times. (Now in public domain, the book is the source of the material in The National Night Stick’s Rogue’s Corner.”) Some of Byrnes cases were romanticized in books such as A Tragic Mystery, The Great Bank Robbery, and The Fatal Letter. Purported to be “From the Diary of Inspector Byrnes;” the books were written by journalist/author, Julian Hawthorne, son of novelist Nathanial Hawthorne.

But not everyone was impressed with Thomas Byrnes. The ethics behind his methods, which were often no better than those of his rivals, put him at odds with reformers and journalists. In a rush to find the killer of East Side prostitute Carrie Brown—whose murder was being compared by the press to those of London’s Jack the Ripper—he railroaded Ameer Bin Ali, convicting him on tampered evidence. Journalists Jacob Riis and Charles Edward Russell campaigned to have the verdict overturned, and eleven years later they succeeded.

Cases like this one, along with Byrnes close association with Tammany Hall, began to tarnish his image. He was never able to satisfactorily explain how he had amassed a personal fortune of $350,000 on a salary of $5,000 per year. In 1895, when reform-minded Theodore Roosevelt was appointed Police Commissioner, Thomas Byrne was forced to resign. In spite of his flaws, Thomas Byrne left a lasting imprint on American law enforcement as was truly one of The Great Detectives.

 



Sources:

  • Byrnes, Thomas. Professional criminals of America. New York, N.Y: Cassel, 1886.
  • Conway, J. North. The big policeman: the rise and fall of America's first, most ruthless, and greatest detective. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2010.
  • Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.
  • Hawthorne, Julian. A tragic mystery from the diary of Inspector Byrnes. New York: Cassell, 1887.