Priest Vallon (1807-6 February 1846) was an Irish immigrant to the United States who led the infamous "Dead Rabbits" gang of the Five Points of Manhattan during the mid-19th century. In 1846, he was killed in a gang war with the rival "Natives" gang, a nativist gang which discriminated against the slum's Catholic Irish immigrant inhabitants.
Biography[]
Priest Vallon was born in 1807 in Dublin, Ireland to a family of Irish Catholics. He emigrated to the United States to escape the great famine of the 1830s and 1840s, settling in the Five Points slum of Manhattan, New York City. There, he became a respected leader of the Irish immigrant community, and he was nicknamed "Priest" for his devout Catholicism; however, he was no clergyman, fathering a son whom he named Amsterdam and coming to lead the Dead Rabbits, a gang of Irish Catholic immigrants formed to protect the Irish immigrant community from nativist violence. He became rivals with the Protestant Natives gang, led by William Cutting, and they planned to decide their dispute once and for all on 6 February 1846.
Final battle[]
Vallon's body
The Natives and Dead Rabbits, each supported by smaller gangs, met at snowy Paradise Square, where Cutting and Vallon exchanged taunts before leading their warriors into a gruesome melee battle. Cutting killed several Irish gangsters before making his way towards Vallon, stabbing him in the chest and in the side with his two knives. A mortally wounded Vallon fell to the ground as his son watched from a distance, and a Dead Rabbits member sounded the retreat, leaving the Natives as the victors. Amsterdam ran to his father, who told him to "never look away" (asking him to remember his death), and Vallon then asked Cutting to finish him. Cutting stabbed him one last time, killing him, and he left his knife in Vallon's hands for when he "crossed the river" in the afterlife. He then ordered that Amsterdam be taken to the law and given a proper education, but Vallon took the knife which killed his father and ran off, secretly vowing to avenge his father's death. Cutting then had the Dead Rabbits outlawed and forbade the mention of their name, but, as he respected Vallon, he ordered that no man touch his body, and had him buried with honor.
Gallery[]
