Tom
Lee is Naturalized,
1876
Tom Lee, the "Mayor of Chinatown" and
über boss of the On Leong Tong for nearly four decades, was
known as Wung Ah Ling when he left China for America in the
1860s. He spent time in San Francisco, St. Louis and
Philadelphia before arriving in New York in 1878. He was
naturalized as an American citizen in St. Louis in 1876, a
half dozen years before passage of the Chinese Exclusion
Act, which rendered Chinese ineligible for citizenship.
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No.
18 Mott Street, 1880s
An early, undated photo of Chinese men lined up outside No.
18 Mott Street, a building owned by Tom Lee that became the
headquarters of the Loon Yee Tong in 1880. Lee also ran
illegal gambling establishments in this building.
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New
Rates for the Gambling Houses, 1891
One of the few Chinese-language documents that
survives testifies to new arrangements imposed on
Chinatown's gambling dens by the organization that
eventually became the On Leong Tong. The announcement sets
out new rates for "commissions" and probably signaled that
the cut given to the New York police had increased.
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 The
Tongs Incorporate, 1896-7
In its quest for respectability, the Hip Sing Tong drafted
articles of incorporation which were approved by the Supreme
Court of Brooklyn in 1896. Not to be outdone, the On Leong
Tong followed suit soon after. It secured its charter at the
Chinese Merchants Association from Albany in early 1897.
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The
Shooting of Ah Fee, 1900
Ah Fee, a Newark tailor
and an On Leong, was ambushed at the corner of Doyers
Street and shot in the back as he ran up Pell Street. He
was able to identify his attacker, a Hip Sing named Sue
Sing, before he died of his wounds later that night. He had
been targeted to prevent him from serving as an alibi
witness for the earlier shooting of a Hip Sing, and his
death marked the onset of the First Tong War.
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 Peace
Banquet, Port Arthur Restaurant, 1906
At the end of March,
1906, the On Leongs and the Hip Sings celebrated a treaty of
peace that put an end to the six-year First Tong War. The
gathering honored Judge Warren W. Foster, who had mediated
the dispute, and was memorialized in a cartoon in the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The five-hour banquet was held at
the Port Arthur Restaurant on Mott Street. It was the first
time anyone could recall that the tongs had sat down at a
meal together.
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Bow Kum is Brutally Murdered, 1909
The Second Tong War, fought between the On Leong Tong and
the Four Brothers' Society, was set in motion by an argument
over a 21 year-old Chinese woman. She was brutally murdered
in an out-building behind No. 17 Mott Street. Here is Bow
Kum's official death certificate, which lists her cause of
death as a "penetrating stab wound of abdomen and chest."
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Gin Gum
and Mock Duck are Related, 1913
When 50 year-old Gin Gum, a senior On
Leong, fell in love with Josephine Toy, he went to his
arch-enemy, Mock Duck, head of the Hip Sing Tong, who was
married to Josephine's daughter Frances, to ask for her
hand. He apparently did not object, because the two were
married in Ohio in April 29, 1913, as this certificate
testifies.
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Mock Duck
Goes to Sing
Sing, 1913
Despite his cutthroat reputation, Mock
Duck was never convicted of murder. He was frequently
jailed, however, and he did hard time once for running an
illegal gambling establishment, spending more than a year at
Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.
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Stay
of Execution Sought, 1915
Convicted for murdering Tom Lee's
nephew, Eng Hing and Lee Dock were sentence to die in the
electric chair in 1913. But appeals and even the revelation
of perjury at their trial failed to free them, as did a
last-ditch attempt by attorney Frank Moss to stay their
execution.
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Charlie Boston's Funeral, 1930
Rare, surviving
video footage shows the 1930 funeral procession for
Charlie Boston, (Lee Quon Jung), the last of the old
lions of the On Leong Tong. A member beginning in
the 1890s, he had served a term at Atlanta State
Penitentiary for smuggling and distributing opium
and assumed leadership of the tong after the death
of Tom Lee. Boston was given a Presbyterian sendoff
with some Chinese touches, and interred at Cypress
Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.
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The Tongs Hold Conventions, 1931
Both the Hip Sing and On Leong tongs held
their annual national conventions in New
York City in April, 1931. Police braced for
trouble as several thousand Chinese of both
stripes from dozens of cities descended on
lower Manhattan. But the organizations had
more pressing matters on their minds: rather
than attack each other, they had to grapple
with the grim question of how to provide
relief for those of their brethren who had
lost their livelihoods in the Great
Depression.
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