Edwin Thomas: Infamous Bowery Tattooer
Researched & Written by Carmen Forquer Nyssen
Born: about 1832, Baltimore, MD
Died: 02 Jan 1898 Manhattan, NY
Burial: Lutheran Cemetery, Pub 3 Lot 5 Row 8 Grave 49
Although nineteenth century New York City tattooer Edwin “Ned” Thomas was a standing competitor of famed contemporary Civil War sailor Martin Hildebrandt (1825-1890), he didn’t enjoy the same caliber of celebrity in tattooing. His antics as a full-fledged character of the city’s motley Lower East Side (LES) are mostly to blame. As reported in newspapers and documents, aside from tattooing in his shops near the East River docks and on the Bowery Thomas worked as a ship carpenter …and more scandalously …as a professional thief.
Infamous Thief Tattooer
Both Martin Hildebrandt and Edwin Thomas maintained that they had learned the tattoo craft from fellow seamen while working aboard sailing vessels. But they took divergent paths afterwards. During the years Hildebrandt was making a big name for himself in New York City as a tattooer, in the 1870s and 1880s, Thomas made his mark in the LES as an infamous thief and spent a good deal of time in and out of prison.
His first major criminal charge in 1869—3rd degree burglary for operating a 35 Forsyth Street thievery ring attached to politician Barney Rourke’s saloon—landed him in Sing Sing Prison for a three-year stint. Coincidentally, Rourke’s No. 35 Forsyth saloon, as were many of the day, was a front for such vagaries as gambling, prostitution, and illegal voter’s registrations. It’s not clear whether Thomas’ misdeeds were directly related to these rackets, though various records connect him to this address (possibly tattooing) as late as 1890 (one of his partners in crimes was a thieving saloonkeeper named John H. Sheridan).
The Barney Rourke Saloon at 35 Forsyth, just off the Bowery, was the meeting place of the Barney Rourke Association, a political machine designed to keep him and his fellow politicians in power.
Whatever the exact nature of Thomas’ criminal affiliations, his rap sheet grew longer rapidly. In 1872, an assault incident won him a 6-month jail tenure:
1872 Apr 18 New York Herald pg. 6: “Edwin Thomas, charged with assaulting Edward Hauff at 48 Chrystie street, in the 28th of February, pleaded guilty and was sent to the Penitentiary for six months.”
And, in both 1876 and 1881, he was dealt two multiple-year sentences for robbery (one under alias George Williams). A related 1876 newspaper article described him as a notorious young ruffian of “The Hook” (Corlear’s Hook), the LES’ most debauched sector–namesake of streetwalkers aka “hookers” as well as the notorious Hook Gang. But most of the addresses reported in prison documents, city directories, etc. (which cross-reference each other) place his residences at locations off Chatham Square and the Bowery, near the rough-and-tumble Five Points burrough.
Crime Vs. Tattoo Time
Thomas’ two-to-four-year long absences from the tattoo scene over this decade or so (approximately 8 out of 12 years) hindered any momentum he might have gained alongside his competitors. It didn’t help that his latter prison-stay, a two-year term, occurred right in the middle of a major breakthrough in the tattoo trade.
Not long before Thomas’ 1881 imprisonment, Hildebrandt and the equally revered Philadelphia tattooer, Stephen Lee, caused quite a stir when they covered Brooklyn jeweler Harry Decoursey (real name William Henry Denny, 1851-1903) in a full bodysuit of tattoo designs and rendered the first trade-specific ‘tattooed man,’ created for the sole purpose of exhibiting in front of circus and dime show audiences. Not long after Thomas’ incarceration, yet another history-making attraction was introduced to the scene.
Debuting on March 21, 1882 was the first-ever ‘tattooed lady,’ Irene Woodward (Ida Lisk, 1857-1915)—a pretty 19-year-old, whose one-of-a-kind freakery further amazed show-going crowds. Because of Thomas’ jailbird status, he wasn’t able to capitalize on the initial business goldmine inspired by these sensational tattooed “oddities,” unlike the many tattooers who followed Hildebrandt and Lee’s lead and inundated the dime show circuit with their own tattooed masterpieces.
Trade Tattooer Thomas
In fact, by the time Edwin Thomas’ prison term ended in 1883, tattooed attractions—etched in thoughtfully composed nautical, patriotic, and religious motifs of the day—were a staple of dime shows and circuses. Upon his discharge, however, Thomas made up for lost time by joining the trend and earning himself a window of publicity …and then some.
He first set up in Chicago, and then by 1884, in Cincinnati at Slimmer’s Stock Yard Hotel & Restaurant, where a newspaper reporter described him at work tattooing a multitude of grand designs on the recently widowed Circassian lady Annie Grace (wife of James Grace, 1857-1883).
Thomas was also responsible for decorating the lovely, young Ida May Busey, aka Mlle. Aimee, with his repertoire of designs c. 1884.
In establishing his authority and purported longevity in the trade, and to obscure his recent prisoner-hood, Thomas informed the newspaper interviewer that he ranked among three longstanding professional tattooers in the county—himself, Hildebrandt, and Stephen Lee—and that he had been Hildebrandt’s partner as early as 1848, tattooing all through the Civil War. (It’s unclear whether or not he actually ever tattooed with either of the two).
Thomas’ Tattoo Tall Tales
While Thomas was no doubt a proficient tattooer in his own right, he continued such self-promotional shams when opportunity arose. The following year, shortly after Hildebrandt had succumbed to mental illness and quit tattooing, Thomas returned to New York City, and conveniently settled into his rival’s old niche—sometimes taking liberties with the facts of his career in newspaper interviews. With cunning befitting of his criminal ilk, he upheld that he had been tattooing in the city consistently for 35 (or 39) years, as if to assume a renowned persona rivaling Hildebrandt’s. At least once, he took credit for creating half the tattooed attractions in existence, including those Hildebrandt had covered with his own handiwork.
Professor of Tattooing
There’s no reason to believe Thomas hadn’t been etching the skins of sailors, gangsters, and such in intermittent years between jail runs, ship-building, and burglarizing. Yet his sudden celebrity in New York City and beyond, it seems, was in the timing—of riding the prosperity laid out by his cohorts’ groundbreaking efforts and filling the void left behind by the once-illustrious Hildebrandt. Prior to 1883, he wasn’t mentioned in the media as a tattoo artist and jail records gave his primary occupation as thief and ship carpenter. Not to mention, neither Martin Hildebrandt nor Stephen Lee ever acknowledged him in newspaper interviews. In an 1876 feature, Hildebrandt named “Brown of Boston, Lee of Philadelphia” and a man in Chicago “whose real name is Farrell” as the most well-known in the country.
Despite his past anonymity, however, for six years in the 1880s, Thomas maximized his late-found stardom, portrayed in the media as an “elderly man with spectacles,” a “learned” professor of tattooing who had plied his “art” since his earliest days at sea.
By day, he manned his dockside, saloon-adjacent tattoo shop at the corner of 40 South Street and Old Slip, and by night, he obliged upper-class visitors in a second Bowery “office,” quite likely at Rourke’s 35 Forsyth saloon.
In 1887, Hildebrandt’s old partner, Stephen Lee, even conducted business with him at the 40 South Street location–the Old Slip House, a depot for shipping agents and all manner of sailor accommodations, including a saloon. All was well in these undertakings until Thomas’ less savory side ensured him one last turn in his old Sing Sing stomping grounds.
Tattooed Mistress Shot
On May 1, 1890, a 58-year-old Thomas tracked his 21-year-old ex-mistress, Jennie Connors (1868-1894), to a tenement near the docks, where she was visiting a friend. In a rage, he barged in and shot her just inches above her heart. Jennie was the sister of Worth’s Dime Museum tattooed lady, Catherine (Connors) McCaffrey (1860-1923), who was adorned from neck to feet with Thomas’ artwork. Jennie herself carried a few of his designs on her arms as well. Jennie and Thomas had been living together for several months, but when she learned that he had a wife (Mary) and five children (Edwin Jr., Frank, Mary, Mabel, and Katie), she moved back in with her widowed mother, Bridget, at nearby 139 Cherry Street, the family home. In preceding months, Thomas had made several attempts on her life because she had met a new sweetheart since their break-up. This last try left her in critical condition and sent him straight to the penitentiary for an over four-year sentence—of which he served three years and five months.
Electric Tattooer Vs. Old Professor Tattooer
It was during these several years behind bars that Thomas missed out on an exponentially more monumental event in tattooing—the emergence of electric tattooing. Prior to his imprisonment, tattooers had already begun working with electric tattoo machines, but the phenomenon was soon to catalyze tattooing into a full-blown, bonafide trade.
By the end of 1889, rising champion dime museum tattooer, Sam O’Reilly, had covered the young Tom Sidonia (1869-1954), and probably others, with his electric tattoo machines adapted from dental pluggers and Edison stencil pens. In December of 1891, the benefit of these breakthrough devices was fully realized when O’Reilly obtained a patent and prompted a new era of tattooing. This improved process turned out waves of beautifully-fashioned, electrically-tattooed performers parading along dime museum and circus platforms, and brought tattooers ample business. But Thomas didn’t profit from the revolution in quite the same way.
This time after he was released (early) from jail on October 20, 1893, he chose not to align himself with the new tattoo scene that had developed. Instead, he kept a low profile, resuming his trusty narrative of being the “oldest and most-experienced” tattoo artist in the country, and settled into the side office of a Bowery saloon (probably 57 ½ Bowery, see below) where he humbly pricked away on customers with his ivory hand-poking “pencils, each holding from four to six No. 12 needles.” The January 26, 1896 The World report of an old tattooer set up in a “little closet in a corner of a saloon just up from Chatham Square” is likely describing Edwin Thomas.
Whether to avoid comparisons with his more modern colleagues or discourage questions about his recent jail time, or both, in an 1894 interview, he failed to comment on the advent of electric tattooing, the latest barrage of electrically tattooed attractions, or any up-and-comers in the trade, including O’Reilly, whose tattoo shop sat down the street at 5 Chatham Square.
Bowery Tattoo Character
Thomas’ short run of prominence in tattooing was remarkable considering his ongoing lock-ups, even if he ended his career as modestly as he had started out. In the bigger scheme, he was less influential than some of fellow skin-etchers. Still, he holds a place in tattoo history, and through all his undertakings, he stands as a genuine character of New York City’s wild and diverse LES neighborhood(s). Effectively conducting “business” as a tattooer and professional thief in such an environment required implicit knowledge of the scene’s innerworkings, which only came from being an integral part of its many facets …ex-sailor, ship carpenter, tattooer, criminal etc… Thomas made the most of his resources.
Ironically, Thomas’ activities connected him, at least indirectly, to the establishments of higher-ranking men you might say were after his own make. According to Thomas’ death certificate, when he died in 1898, he was living at No. 57 ½ Bowery, which was likely a cubby inside Florence J. Sullivan and his brother Chrystie D. Sullivan’s No. 57 Bowery Saloon.
__
Sullivan was a member of a powerful political family headed by Tim Sullivan that held sway in Tammany Hall and ruled the LES through both legitimate and underground means. The family was well-connected with a range of characters, from big-time racketeering politicians such as Charles “Silver Dollar” Smith and Barney Rourke (1836-1901) to nefarious gang members like Monk Eastman, who like Thomas, played their hand in the sector’s varied “business industries,” but unlike him, had the upper-hand.
See Buzzworthy Tattoo History research about New York City’s most longstanding tattoo artist, Charlie Wagner, and his early establishments set among Monk Eastman and Silver Dollar Smith’s tenable activities. Charlie Wagner, King of Bowery Tattooers.
Thomas Tattooed All-Over
Edwin Thomas’ prison records evidence the inherent connectedness of historical facets and their importance to the greater picture. Excerpts describing his numerous tattoos illustrate not only the tattoo traditions of the era, in subject matter and body placement, but also the extent of tattooing an average ex-sailor and/or tattooer possessed.
- -Rt. Upper Arm: Goddess of Liberty with shield and flag
- -Below a medallion portrait and flag, on forearm outside, figure of Highlander
- -Inside two canons crossed with flag and ship? and below a crucifix and American coat of arms on back of same hand
- -On outside of left forearm, full length female figure with person exposed with Chinese hieroglyphics extending from feet of same, down the wrist and upon back of hand
- -Inside, a tomb with weeping willow with letters “E.T.” inscribed below, the letters “E.B.” and L.B.”
- -On back and shoulder blades a brig under full sail
- -On breast, a tomb with weeping willow on the right and figure of sailor on the left with inscription “to the memory of my sister”
- -On left shin, a full-blown rose and head of female inside of same calf
- -On same thigh two male figures fighting with cutlasses
- -And on right thigh a full rigged ship under sail with -American colors at the peak? and pennant at the fore. All in India ink
Tattoo Thoughts & Notes
It stands to reason that early tattooers covered in designs exhibited their bodies in some manner, while in the process of tattooing, say, as advertisement. However, there isn’t any evidence to suggest that they performed professionally on stage before the emergence of those tattooed attractions solely made for exhibition in dime museums and circuses.
As for dime museum tattooed attractions …I recently received a surprise message from the great-granddaughter of Catherine (Connors) McCaffrey, Worth’s Dime Museum tattooed lady, and great grand-niece of her sister Jennie Connors. She’s just started researching her family tree and came across my research here and on Find-a-Grave. She was pretty shocked to learn of her ancestor’s very interesting history. That’s one of the reasons I love genealogy/history/tattoo history! Such connections make it worthwhile for all!
As an aside, Samuel F. O’Reilly took over Thomas’ 40 South Street tattoo shop in 1891, while Thomas was behind bars in Sing Sing.
For further history and background on Edwin Thomas’ drama-ridden tattoo career see the following Buzzworthy Tattoo History research articles:
Saloon Tattoo Shops of New York City’s 4th Ward
Barnum & Bunnell’s Tattooed Humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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