Born: Unknown, United States (Assumed)
Died: Unknown
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Sadie Farrell
According to folklore, Sadie Farrell was a ruthless street mugger in New York, who earned her nickname attacking men by charging and headbutting them in the stomach, like a goat. Her accomplice would then hit them in the head and the two would rob their victim. She also reputedly had a long-standing feud with a six-foot-tall bouncer named Gallus Mag, who bit off Sadie’s ear in a bar fight. Mag had a reputation for this, though usually she did it to male troublemakers.
The shame of this encounter drover Sadie to leave the Fourth Ward for West Side Manhattan’s waterfront. In 1869, she ran into members of the Charlton Street Gang trying and failing to board a sloop anchored in the middle of the Hudson River, as the ship’s crew repeatedly fended them off. She offered her help, became the gang’s leader, and withing days she had planned and carried out the successful hijacking of a larger sloop. She and her new crew set off flying the Jolly Roger. They sailed up and down the Hudson and Harlem Rivers , raiding villages, farm houses and riverside mansions, sometimes kidnapping people for ransom.
For months, they stashed their loot in hidden locations until they could fence them in shops along the Hudson and East Rivers. Eventually, however, the farmers started fighting back, and deciding retreat was the best options, Sadie reportedly returned to the Fourth Ward. Now known as the Queen of the Waterfront, she made peace with Gallus Mag, who returned Sadie’s ear, which she’s had on display in a pickled jar at her bar. Sadie wore the ear as a necklace for the rest of her life.