by Marion R. Casey, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University.

© Marion R. Casey, 2024. All rights reserved.

Built by John Jackson in 1817, this three-story Greek Revival house is now landmarked in the Vinegar Hill District of Brooklyn. Although there is no documented Emigrant Savings Bank account holder at this address, there were in other buildings either side of it.

Events that took place at 67 Hudson Avenue would have been the talk of the neighborhood!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the first of February 1876, William Sheehan lived at 67 Hudson Avenue. He was a bartender for Michael O’Neill, a few blocks away at 143 Hudson Avenue, when he was arrested for the attempted murder of Michael Farrell. The Brooklyn Eagle reported the lurid details of their encounter the following day:

“[Sheehan] is accused by a man named Michael Farrell of having shot him through the head in the liquor store mentioned, at about three o’clock yesterday. Farrell, who resides at the corner of Sands street and Hudson avenue, had been on a spree for a couple of days, and went into O’Neil’s store to get a drink. He was very drunk at the time, and O’Neil told his two bartenders not to give Farrell any more than one drink, and then to send him home. Sheehan waited on him and gave him the drink he asked for, but refused to give him any more, at which Farrell became angry and abusive, and Sheehan went outside the bar to put him out. Farrell said he would not go out, and he defied any one to put him out, at the same time advancing to meet Sheehan, who was approaching him for the purpose of putting him out. Farrell clinched with Sheehan, and struck him several times, and during the struggle both men fell against a ret hot stove in the centre of the bar room and nearly upset it, the stove pipe was all knocked away, and it was a wonder that the place wasn’t set on fire. Sheehan managed to loose himself from Farrell’s grasp, and he ran round behind the bar to get a club. Farrell followed him, and Sheehan seizing a little billy which hung behind the bar,

STRUCK FARRELL SEVERAL TIMES

And the other barkeeper, a boy of seventeen or eighteen, also hit Farrell, as is supposed with an ice pick. Finally Farrell was overpowered and was thrown out of the store where he lay on the sidewalk bruised and bleeding freely from two wounds on the head. The police finding him, heard his story. He charged that William Sheehan had shot him, and the wound certainly seemed to prove the correctness of Farrell’s statement for it appeared as though a bullet had entered his right temple and had passed clear through his head – coming out exactly opposite on the other side. The barkeeper, however, swears that no pistol was used, that the wounds were inflicted with the blows of the club or else with the icepick used by the other barkeeper. The police saw O’Neil and all the people in the house and not one of them either heard or saw a pistol used. Sheehan was locked up in the York street Station House, and Farrell was conveyed to his residence where he was attended by Dr. John Griffin, of 98 Sands street. Dr. Griffin gave it as his firm belief that Farrell had been shot.”

Dr. Griffin, a native of Ireland, was only 29 years old at the time.