Career
She first came to prominence as a vicious street mugger in New York"s "Bloody" Fourth Ward. Upon encountering a lone traveler, she would headbutt men in the stomach and her male accomplice would hit the victim with a sling-shot and rob them. Magazine bit off Sadie"s ear in a bar fight.
Leaving the area in disgrace, she ventured to the waterfront area in West Side Manhattan.
Watching the men being driven back across the river by a handful of the ship"s crew, she offered her services to the men and became the gang"s leader. She was said to have made several male prisoners "walk the plank".
Sadie and her men continued their activities for several months and stashed their cargo in several hiding spots until they could be gradually disposed of through fences and pawn shops along the Hudson and East Rivers. By the end of the summer however, farmers had begun resisting the raids, attacking landing parties with gunfire.
The group abandoned the sloop and Sadie returned to the Fourth Ward, where she was now known as the "Queen of the Waterfront".
She made a truce with Gallus Magazine, who returned Sadie"s ear. Magazine had displayed it in a pickled jar at her Barometer Sadie afterward kept it in a locket and wore around her neck for the rest of her life.
Sadie is referenced in several historical novels, most notably, J. T. Edson"s Law of the Gun (1968), Tom Murphy"s Lily Cigar (1979), Baronet Sheldon"s Ruby Sweetwater and the Ringo Kid (1981) and Thomas J. Fleming"s A Passionate Girl (2003).
She has also served as the subject of popular songs, including an historical ballad by the indie folk-rock band Nehedar.
