27 Facts About Richard Croker

Richard Croker was born in the townland of Ballyva, in the parish of Ardfield, six miles south of Clonakilty in County Cork on November 24,1843, son of Eyre Coote Croker and Frances Laura Welsted.

Richard Croker was taken to the United States by his parents when he was just two years old.

Eyre Coote Richard Croker owned an estate in Ardfield, in southwest Cork.

Richard Croker dropped out of school at age twelve or thirteen to become an apprentice machinist in the Harlem Railroad machine shops.

Richard Croker joined one of the Volunteer Fire Departments in 1863, becoming an engineer of one of the engine companies.

Richard Croker became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics.

Richard Croker was an alderman from 1868 to 1870, Coroner of New York County, New York, from 1873 to 1876.

Richard Croker was charged with the murder of John McKenna, a lieutenant of James O'Brien, during a fight on election day of 1874 with O'Brien's rival political group.

John Kelly, the new Tammany Hall boss, attended the trial, and Richard Croker was freed after the jury was undecided.

Richard Croker was appointed the New York City Fire Commissioner in 1883 and 1887 and city Chamberlain from 1889 to 1900.

Richard Croker was chairman of Tammany's Finance Committee but received no salary for his position.

Richard Croker survived Charles Henry Parkhurst's attacks on Tammany Hall's corruption and became a wealthy man.

Several committees were established in the 1890s, largely at the behest of Thomas C Platt and other Republicans, to investigate Tammany and Croker, including the 1890 Fassett Committee, the 1894 Lexow Committee, during which Croker left the United States for his European residences for three years, and the Mazet Investigation of 1899.

Croker's greatest political success was his bringing about the 1897 election of Robert A Van Wyck as first mayor of the five-borough "greater" New York, and during Van Wyck's administration Croker is popularly supposed to have completely dominated the government of the city.

Richard Croker was in the newspapers in 1899 after a disagreement with Jay Gould's son, George Gould, president of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company, when Gould refused Richard Croker's attempt to attach compressed-air pipes to the Elevated company's structures.

Richard Croker owned many shares of the New York Auto-Truck Company, which would have benefited from the arrangement.

Richard Croker held 2,500 shares of the American Ice Company, worth approximately $250,000, which came under scrutiny in 1900 when the company attempted to raise the price of ice in the city.

Richard Croker speaks in monosyllables, [and] commands a vocabulary that appears to be limited to about three hundred words.

Richard Croker operated a stable of thoroughbred racehorses in the United States in partnership with Mike Dwyer.

Richard Croker was the breeder of Orby's son Grand Parade, who won the Derby in 1919.

Richard Croker returned to Ireland in 1905 and bought an estate in Malahide, county Dublin where he bred horses.

Richard Croker died on April 29,1922, at Glencairn House, his home in Stillorgan outside Dublin.

In 1927, JJ Walsh claimed that, just before his death, Richard Croker had accepted the Provisional Government's invitation to stand in Dublin County in the imminent Irish election.

Richard Croker married Bula Benson Edmondson in November 1914 when he was 71 years old.

Richard Croker was of American Indian descent, her tribal name being Ketaw Kaluntuchy.

Richard Croker had converted to Catholicism shortly before his death but this does not appear to have played a role in his disinheriting his children.

Richard Croker is the only one of my surviving children who has ever shown any graditude [sic] to me.