Alexander S. Williams
Alexander S. Williams was an American law enforcement officer and police inspector for the New York City Police Department. One of the more colorful yet controversial figures of the NYPD, popularly known as Clubber Williams or Czar of the Tenderloin, he oversaw the Tenderloin and Gas House districts as well as breaking up a number of the citys street gangs, most notably, the Gas House Gang in 1871. He, along with William Big Bill Devery and Thomas F. Byrnes, were among several senior NYPD officials implicated by the Lexow Committee during the 1890s.
Alexander S. Williams was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada on July 9, 1839. His father was a native of Nova Scotia and his mother was Scottish. He emigrated to the United States as a child and was apprenticed as a ships carpenter for the New Yorkbased shipbuilding firm W.H. Webb amp Co. for several years. As a young man, he visited several countries including Mexico and Japan among others. He was reportedly the first Westerner to lay the keel of a sailing ship in Japan. Returning to the United States, he was employed by the government and was engaged in raising a sunken ship off the coast of Florida.
Source: Wikipedia