Abraham Greenthal

Biography

From https://criminalsrevised.blog/2018/02/20/abraham-greenthal-152-and-...

Revised biographies based on NYPD Chief Thomas Byrnes 1886 book, "Professional Criminals of America"

DESCRIPTION. Sixty years old in 1886. Jew, born in Poland. Calls himself a German. Widower. No trade. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 185 pounds. Dark hair, turning quite gray. Prominent nose-lines ; mole near one of them. Beard, when grown, is a sandy gray. Generally has a smooth face.

RECORD. “General” Greenthal is known all over the United States as the leader of the “Sheeny mob.” He is acknowledged to be one of the most expert pickpockets in America. His home is in the Tenth Ward in New York City, and he has been a thief and receiver of stolen goods for the last thirty years. He has served time in several prisons and penitentiaries, but has generally obtained his release before his sentence expired. He is a clever thief, and will fight when forced to. The “General” was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., on March 1, 1877, in company of his brother, Harris, and Samuel Casper, his son-in-law, for robbing a man (see record of No. 153), and sentenced on April 19, 1877, to twenty years in Auburn, N.Y., State prison. He was pardoned in the spring of 1884 by Governor Cleveland. ...

Name notes

Greenthal was an adopted alias, and was often misspelled in newspaper accounts: Grenthal, Gruenthal, Green, etc.; and it was sometimes dropped by Abraham and his family in favor of “Meyers/Myers” or variant spellings of an earlier established family name: Leslauer (found as “Leslan” “Leslau” “Leslie,” etc. in some newspaper records)

Family notes

Greenthal and his gang of associates were pickpockets, sneak thieves, and fences. How extensive their network was is unknown, but the core of it consisted of Abraham, his wife, their daughters, and their husbands; and his brother Hirsch’s family. A leading figure of the gang, in addition to Abraham, was Hirsch’s daughter Augusta Harris, who acted as the main fence, or receiver, during the 1870s.

References

• "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:249T-82Q : 20 March 2015), Julia Davis in entry for Solomon Moses and Mary Leslau, 21 May 1878; citing Marriage, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, New York City Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,562,247.
• Stop Thief! The True Story of Abraham Greenthal, King of the Pickpockets in 19th Century New York City, as Revealed from Contemporary Sources, ©2015 by Edward David Luft, Washington, DC, 178 pp., including bibliography, pp. 135-166, and index, pp. 167-178, and addendum, 2 pp. http://www.lbi.org/digibaeck/results/?qtype=pid&term=2928280; at the Library of Congress, HV6651.L84 (2015) and https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/2586241?availability=Family...