Albert W. Hicks

Albert W. Hicks (c. 1820 – July 13, 1860, also known as Elias W. Hicks, William Johnson, John Hicks, and Pirate Hicks) was a triple murderer and one of the last people executed for piracy in the United States. Cultural historian Rich Cohen places him as the first New York City legendary gangster figure, a bridge between the piracy of old and the rise of a new "gangster nation".

Biography

According to Hicks' testimony, he was born around 1820 in Foster, Rhode Island. His father was a farmer who had seven sons, of whom Hicks was the second youngest. He was known to be headstrong and a fighter. He never attended school and worked on the farm until age 15 when he ran away to Norwich, Connecticut, where he began a life of crime. Arrested for theft, he was put into jail. Biographer Rich Cohen suggests it wouldn't have been uncommon for a teenage runaway to be "buggered" by older inmates. Hicks escaped a number of times but he was re-apprehended and given increasingly severe sentences, including a year in solitary where Hicks said he "went a little crazy." He swore vengeance "against the whole human race."

By Hicks' own account, he spent the next 20 years committing many crimes, including murder in the gold fields of California, throughout South America, Mexico, the South Pacific, and the Atlantic trade triangle. Ship mutinies and highway robberies were his main occupation. It is possible that Hicks killed hundreds of people. He and an accomplice typically killed their victims and stayed on the move, spending their ill-gotten earnings on alcohol, prostitutes, and fine clothes until the money ran out. He was a known raconteur, and when his confessions were published, The New York Times raised some doubt about their accuracy, but modern biographer Rich Cohen said there was evidence to support at least some of the stories.