🇳🇱 Ulidian 🇬🇧

Born today in 1821, William Poole aka Bill the Butcher rose from New Jersey roots to become a forceful nativist operative in 1850s New York. As a leading figure in the Bowery Boys and an organizer for the Know Nothing movement, he channeled street networks into political muscle, backing native born candidates, disrupting immigrant backed Tammany rallies and treating election days as contests of loyalty as much as votes. In a city rapidly transformed by Irish arrivals, Poole embodied the American Party’s hard line: America for Americans. He died at 33 still declaring himself “a true American.”