The year is 1869. The Hudson is packed with big and small merchants alike going up and down the river. But another group lurks in the background. Pirates.
One notorious pirate in particular: “Sarah Farrell, also known as Sadie Farrell, Sadie ‘the Goat’, Sadie ‘the Goat’ Farrell, Sadie ‘the Feral Goat’ Farrell, and Queen of the Waterfront,” says a prosecutor in a new play showing at the Hudson River Maritime Museum that brings this period to life.
The play called, “Crime on the Hudson,” written by Caitlin Connelly & Tricia Anderson, centers on a fictional trial of a vicious pirate called Sarah “The Goat” Farrell, who was known for headbutting her enemies in the stomach while an accomplice hit them with a slingshot.
As “The Goat” describes it in the play, “You got to make sure only the top of your head hits the drunk in the gut. You don’t want to be smashing sensitive parts like your eyes and your nose. Mmm, yes. Only a pro could get away with something like that… But nah, I never heard nor done such things in me life.”
While Farrell, played by Connelly, likely never existed and was made up in the 1928 book “Gangs of New York,” the story does describe a very real time in New York’s history after the Civil War.
The river pirates of New York that sailed the Hudson River, or as they called it then, the “North River,” sailed roughly between the 1860s and 1880s, said educator Sara Russell.
“Post-Civil War New York was a place of rapid urbanization, mass immigration, lots of factories, and it was also a place of tenement buildings, disease, overcrowding and scarcity,” said Russell.
In areas like Five Points and the Fourth Ward, groups like the Bowery Boys, the Swamp Angels, the Hook Gang, the Patsy Conroy Gang, and the North River Thieves emerged and ran the streets of Lower Manhattan and the Hudson River, said Russell.
The river pirates would steal anything, she said, “Pirates would often steal things that were very easy to carry. I mentioned bananas, but also rice, sugar, coffee, rope, really anything. It was so easy to board these vessels, even if they were taking something that maybe didn't have a lot of value. It was still worth it, because it was just so easy to go take stuff.”
Russell said until police began using steamboats, they couldn’t row fast enough to catch the pirates.
In the play, a prosecutor wants to prove that Sarah Farrell is, in fact, the dreaded pirate Sarah “The Goat” Farrell. He calls Gallus Mags to the stand to identify Farrell.
In the play, Farrell and Mags have not seen each other since Mags bit off Farrell’s ear in a fight, which is still a sore point for both of them.
Russell said Mags was a real person called Margaret Perry. She said records exist of Perry in newspapers, and her husband had a record in Sing Sing Prison.
The gang that the character Sadie the Goat sailed with, is also made up of real people like members of the Charlton Street Gang, a real gang of river pirates, Russell said.
Russell said she spent a very long time trying to figure out if Sadie the Goat was a real person and searched newspaper records, criminal records, and genealogical records.
But she decided maybe Sadie the Goat should live in folklore.
“Folklore is a crucial piece of our societies. We pass down shared values and wisdom through these stories,” Russell said.
The play was written and performed by the Siren Theatre Company and stars Caitlin Connelly, Tricia Anderson, and Maclain Maier.
“Crime on the Hudson” will play on Friday night, April 24th to a sold-out crowd at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston, and again on August 28th and November 27th.
