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The First Ward
The Story of One American Hero, Mark Twain, and Five of The Greatest Villains You’ve Never Heard Of: Fingy Conners · The Sheehan Brothers · Jack White · John P. Sullivan.
This novel is based on the true history and tumult of boom-town Buffalo’s First Ward from 1850 through New Year’s Eve 1899, and the real-life characters who influenced and controlled the lives of half a million people.
Newlywed Sam Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, was gifted with a spledid home with servants, as well as a part ownership of the Buffalo Express newspaper by his generous father-in-law, yet the Great American Storyteller would find neither happiness nor success in this unruly city.
When First Ward dock-walloper Fingy Conners’ family members all died mysteriously within a single year, he inherited everything, including his father’s saloon. Using his saloon as the key, he set out to control labor contracting on Buffalo’s docks. So overwhelming was his iron-handed saloon-boss system that within a few years he controlled the entirety of shipping on the Great Lakes, ascending to enormous wealth and power in less than a decade, defrauding voters, installing his own puppet politicians, and dominating the entire Buffalo Police Department. By hiring, paying, feeding, watering and boarding laborers out of his saloons, Conners enslaved thousands of families in Buffalo and all around the Great Lakes in misery and hunger for two decades.
After the Sullivan Brothers were placed in an orphanage by their destitute mother following the death of their Union soldier father in the Civil War, poverty, insecurity and violence infected their lives. John P. Sullivan, the city’s powerful First Ward alderman, was installed in that office by Fingy Conners and held it for a quarter century. The brothers grew up with Conners and maintained their troubled alliance with the saloon-boss throughout their lives. Brother James’ fortuitous encounter with Mark Twain as a boy, soon after the famous author moved to Buffalo to edit the Buffalo Express newspaper, and the friendship it initiated, would have a remarkable influence on James for the rest of his life. As Detective Sergeant James E. Sullivan of the Buffalo Police Department, Jim lacked his brother’s blind ambition, and found himself caught up amid forces he could not surmount. He was compelled to follow the orders of his Sheehan-Conners controlled superiors and to rescue his brother from the endless messes the Alderman created for himself.
Jack White, secret murderer and Boston politician, was Buffalo’s most powerful alderman, ever. Posing as a Republican, White helped pave the way for the rise of Democrats Sheehan, Sullivan and Conners. But once he’d served his purpose, his former allies swiftly did away with him.
This novel is based on the true history and tumult of boom-town Buffalo’s First Ward from 1850 through New Year’s Eve 1899, and the real-life characters who influenced and controlled the lives of half a million people.
Newlywed Sam Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, was gifted with a spledid home with servants, as well as a part ownership of the Buffalo Express newspaper by his generous father-in-law, yet the Great American Storyteller would find neither happiness nor success in this unruly city.
When First Ward dock-walloper Fingy Conners’ family members all died mysteriously within a single year, he inherited everything, including his father’s saloon. Using his saloon as the key, he set out to control labor contracting on Buffalo’s docks. So overwhelming was his iron-handed saloon-boss system that within a few years he controlled the entirety of shipping on the Great Lakes, ascending to enormous wealth and power in less than a decade, defrauding voters, installing his own puppet politicians, and dominating the entire Buffalo Police Department. By hiring, paying, feeding, watering and boarding laborers out of his saloons, Conners enslaved thousands of families in Buffalo and all around the Great Lakes in misery and hunger for two decades.
After the Sullivan Brothers were placed in an orphanage by their destitute mother following the death of their Union soldier father in the Civil War, poverty, insecurity and violence infected their lives. John P. Sullivan, the city’s powerful First Ward alderman, was installed in that office by Fingy Conners and held it for a quarter century. The brothers grew up with Conners and maintained their troubled alliance with the saloon-boss throughout their lives. Brother James’ fortuitous encounter with Mark Twain as a boy, soon after the famous author moved to Buffalo to edit the Buffalo Express newspaper, and the friendship it initiated, would have a remarkable influence on James for the rest of his life. As Detective Sergeant James E. Sullivan of the Buffalo Police Department, Jim lacked his brother’s blind ambition, and found himself caught up amid forces he could not surmount. He was compelled to follow the orders of his Sheehan-Conners controlled superiors and to rescue his brother from the endless messes the Alderman created for himself.
Jack White, secret murderer and Boston politician, was Buffalo’s most powerful alderman, ever. Posing as a Republican, White helped pave the way for the rise of Democrats Sheehan, Sullivan and Conners. But once he’d served his purpose, his former allies swiftly did away with him.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
394 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 21, 2011
29 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Richard Sullivan
16 books13 followersEmbarking on his writing career at age 15 as news editor of his high school newspaper, Richard Sullivan’s first serious venture into the world of journalism came at age 18 as an undercover reporter in Toronto at the height of the Vietnam War, where he posed as a draft dodger in order to document the plight of the thousands of young Americans who had fled there.
At age 19 he joined up with the Clyde Beaty-Cole Bros. traveling circus for an expose on the social order within that world, then at age 20 hitch-hiked his way around Europe for three months on a budget of only $500, ending up in a Polish hospital suffering from dysentery during the apex of communism. With no money to pay the bill, the hospital staff opened a window, turned their backs, and listed Sullivan officially as “escaped.”
Sullivan completed 55 extensive photojournalism assignments for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine and 13 assignments for Los Angeles Magazine. In 1987 he traveled to Veracruz for the Wall Street Journal at the invitation of the European engineers constructing Mexico's Solo Palma nuclear power plant, which was being built with bastardized and discarded materials. In 1992 he was awarded his first exhibition as an artist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the following year won the American Airlines Travel Journalism Award for his Hawaii photo-guidebook, Driving & Discovering Oahu. In 1997 he repeated that success with Driving & Discovering Maui & Molokai. Reclaim Your Youth, published in 2009, was the product of twenty-five years in the world of fitness and bodybuilding.
The First Ward Volume I, Sullivan’s first novel, was published in 2011, followed by Volume II, Fingy Conners & The New Century, in 2012 and Volume III, Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins in 2015.
At age 19 he joined up with the Clyde Beaty-Cole Bros. traveling circus for an expose on the social order within that world, then at age 20 hitch-hiked his way around Europe for three months on a budget of only $500, ending up in a Polish hospital suffering from dysentery during the apex of communism. With no money to pay the bill, the hospital staff opened a window, turned their backs, and listed Sullivan officially as “escaped.”
Sullivan completed 55 extensive photojournalism assignments for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine and 13 assignments for Los Angeles Magazine. In 1987 he traveled to Veracruz for the Wall Street Journal at the invitation of the European engineers constructing Mexico's Solo Palma nuclear power plant, which was being built with bastardized and discarded materials. In 1992 he was awarded his first exhibition as an artist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the following year won the American Airlines Travel Journalism Award for his Hawaii photo-guidebook, Driving & Discovering Oahu. In 1997 he repeated that success with Driving & Discovering Maui & Molokai. Reclaim Your Youth, published in 2009, was the product of twenty-five years in the world of fitness and bodybuilding.
The First Ward Volume I, Sullivan’s first novel, was published in 2011, followed by Volume II, Fingy Conners & The New Century, in 2012 and Volume III, Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins in 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 17, 2012
Those hooked on the addictive intricacies of the BBC’s Downton Abbey will much enjoy Richard Sullivan’s The First Ward, a glowing first volume in what the author promises will be a multi-book series.
This novel kidnaps the reader into an unexplored era and places little known to most, and provides those of us who thought we were familiar with all of our nation’s history something novel and fresh sturdily cemented in actual reported events, and for this feat Sullivan must be celebrated.
Many historical novels harken back to others we’ve read previously, but The First Ward stands alone in my experience for its skillful integration of actual published newspaper and magazine accounts detailing astonishing documented events as reported the day they occurred.
Intertwined with fantastic stories such as that of the Fenian Invasion, in which ten thousand disgruntled Civil War vets took up arms immediately following that conflict ended and amassed in Buffalo to launch an invasion of Canada to hold that country hostage until Britain gave Ireland its freedom, is the saga of the Sullivan family, emigrants from the Irish famine, trying to survive in a strange, and for them, mostly brutal new land.
This reader had never heard of the Wide Awakes, the crazed grassroots national youth movement borne to help elect Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, nor that Mark Twain began his married life in Buffalo as editor of the Buffalo Express newspaper.
But most fascinating of all, a very real, diabolical and extremely powerful person, so powerful in fact that it boggles the mind we have never heard the name “Fingy Conners” before, is resurrected from the lost pages of history to be reborn in all his despicable and overpowering glory. Conners headed New York State’s Democratic party, owned two prominent newspapers, controlled the whole of shipping on all the Great Lakes, murdered and pillaged, and owned politicians by the score.
There is not a superfluous paragraph in this 394 page book, not a dull passage nor anything to slog through to get to “the good parts”, for the entire book is composed of good parts that engage and fascinate and wrench the heart and touch us deeply.
The author was quoted as saying that The First Ward is 75% real history, which provides that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Even though the story is in no way similar to Downton Abbey’s, it rivals it in its addictive storyline of rivalry and heartbreak, intrigue, back-stabbing and well-developed real-life characters.
As I read The First Ward I could picture it coming to life on the screen, and I am thinking it will not be long before some savvy producer wishing to capitalize on the public’s Downton Abbey fixation will see The First Ward as an American Downton Abbey.
But meanwhile, I anxiously await volume 2 of The First Ward.The First Ward
This novel kidnaps the reader into an unexplored era and places little known to most, and provides those of us who thought we were familiar with all of our nation’s history something novel and fresh sturdily cemented in actual reported events, and for this feat Sullivan must be celebrated.
Many historical novels harken back to others we’ve read previously, but The First Ward stands alone in my experience for its skillful integration of actual published newspaper and magazine accounts detailing astonishing documented events as reported the day they occurred.
Intertwined with fantastic stories such as that of the Fenian Invasion, in which ten thousand disgruntled Civil War vets took up arms immediately following that conflict ended and amassed in Buffalo to launch an invasion of Canada to hold that country hostage until Britain gave Ireland its freedom, is the saga of the Sullivan family, emigrants from the Irish famine, trying to survive in a strange, and for them, mostly brutal new land.
This reader had never heard of the Wide Awakes, the crazed grassroots national youth movement borne to help elect Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, nor that Mark Twain began his married life in Buffalo as editor of the Buffalo Express newspaper.
But most fascinating of all, a very real, diabolical and extremely powerful person, so powerful in fact that it boggles the mind we have never heard the name “Fingy Conners” before, is resurrected from the lost pages of history to be reborn in all his despicable and overpowering glory. Conners headed New York State’s Democratic party, owned two prominent newspapers, controlled the whole of shipping on all the Great Lakes, murdered and pillaged, and owned politicians by the score.
There is not a superfluous paragraph in this 394 page book, not a dull passage nor anything to slog through to get to “the good parts”, for the entire book is composed of good parts that engage and fascinate and wrench the heart and touch us deeply.
The author was quoted as saying that The First Ward is 75% real history, which provides that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Even though the story is in no way similar to Downton Abbey’s, it rivals it in its addictive storyline of rivalry and heartbreak, intrigue, back-stabbing and well-developed real-life characters.
As I read The First Ward I could picture it coming to life on the screen, and I am thinking it will not be long before some savvy producer wishing to capitalize on the public’s Downton Abbey fixation will see The First Ward as an American Downton Abbey.
But meanwhile, I anxiously await volume 2 of The First Ward.The First Ward
January 11, 2012
A First Rate Historical Drama by a First Rate Storyteller
It is election year and while there are many candidates currently vying for the Republican position to run against President Obama, the stories that come leaping at us through the instant media and distillation of speeches, and debates, and roundtables and other means of bringing up personal aspects of the various candidates' political, religious and personal lives as fodder for the public to create their own images, all of that seems bland when compared to the type of writing contained in this brilliant historical novel THE FIRST WARD by Richard Sullivan. We may talk about corruption, immigration issues, and greed as being novel ingredients for current conversation, but take a look at the past - especially the way Richard Sullivan enables to survey it - and our current status may seem rather benign.
Sullivan has tackled the history that filled the first Ward of Buffalo, New York during the second half of the 19th century. It is a tale of immigration (primarily of the Irish genre) and the hopes of immigrants who braved the times of the Civil War in this country to settle in Buffalo. It is a tale of an instantly wealthy robber baron, Fingy Conners, who abused his power by enslaving the Irish immigrants to work in his multitudinous industries - the docks, the saloons, and in general the entire workforce of Buffalo. The author traces his connection to the Sullivans of Buffalo who struggled against Conners until the rise to political power of on John P. Sullivan. Populating this compelling story are such characters as Mark Twain (enough energy in this portion to fill a separate book) and Jim Sullivan and so many other characters who provide the windows to the submerged stories and secrets and lies of that most raucous of towns - Buffalo, NY. This is a raw tale of heros and villains, as only history better than fiction can reveal.
In many ways Richard Sullivan has given us a true account of just what the American Dream was - and still is: poverty and living in violent extremes can be overcome with the kind of sheer fortitude the Sullivans represent. The timing of this novel could not be better. As many of the once middle class citizens of this country see the disillusion of their own history dissolve into a nation of 'thems that have and thems that have not', this story can provide a sense of history and inspiration. And while that may not have been Sullivan's intent on writing this book, it can certainly serve to rev up the courage of many many people today. Highly recommended reading - for inspiration and for a plain old fashioned fascinating read.
Grady Harp
It is election year and while there are many candidates currently vying for the Republican position to run against President Obama, the stories that come leaping at us through the instant media and distillation of speeches, and debates, and roundtables and other means of bringing up personal aspects of the various candidates' political, religious and personal lives as fodder for the public to create their own images, all of that seems bland when compared to the type of writing contained in this brilliant historical novel THE FIRST WARD by Richard Sullivan. We may talk about corruption, immigration issues, and greed as being novel ingredients for current conversation, but take a look at the past - especially the way Richard Sullivan enables to survey it - and our current status may seem rather benign.
Sullivan has tackled the history that filled the first Ward of Buffalo, New York during the second half of the 19th century. It is a tale of immigration (primarily of the Irish genre) and the hopes of immigrants who braved the times of the Civil War in this country to settle in Buffalo. It is a tale of an instantly wealthy robber baron, Fingy Conners, who abused his power by enslaving the Irish immigrants to work in his multitudinous industries - the docks, the saloons, and in general the entire workforce of Buffalo. The author traces his connection to the Sullivans of Buffalo who struggled against Conners until the rise to political power of on John P. Sullivan. Populating this compelling story are such characters as Mark Twain (enough energy in this portion to fill a separate book) and Jim Sullivan and so many other characters who provide the windows to the submerged stories and secrets and lies of that most raucous of towns - Buffalo, NY. This is a raw tale of heros and villains, as only history better than fiction can reveal.
In many ways Richard Sullivan has given us a true account of just what the American Dream was - and still is: poverty and living in violent extremes can be overcome with the kind of sheer fortitude the Sullivans represent. The timing of this novel could not be better. As many of the once middle class citizens of this country see the disillusion of their own history dissolve into a nation of 'thems that have and thems that have not', this story can provide a sense of history and inspiration. And while that may not have been Sullivan's intent on writing this book, it can certainly serve to rev up the courage of many many people today. Highly recommended reading - for inspiration and for a plain old fashioned fascinating read.
Grady Harp
January 2, 2017
If you are from "The Ward", whether first generation or 5th (as I am), I believe you will find the First ward series to be well worth your time. Other reviews complain that it is too much fact, or not enough. I went into it as historic fiction; main history intact, but with an interesting, more personal "fictional" side story. Little did I know that I would be jumping into my own family. My great, grand uncle, Joseph Gavin, is involved in the story. Changes in how he is portrayed, compared to family history, lead me to read the entire newspaper articles from the news of that time. Political connections, unknown to me in the past, became clearer, leading me to re-think my family's "place" in the Ward.
Yes, there is a cliff hanger ending. Being a genealogist, I didn't run out for the next book (which, of course, I did do). I went to work. Not only did I find out what happens, I made a family connection to the characters.
I then gave the books to my 93 year old father, who could not put them down. Stories were told, relating to people, places, and the stories of the Ward. I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good story.
Yes, there is a cliff hanger ending. Being a genealogist, I didn't run out for the next book (which, of course, I did do). I went to work. Not only did I find out what happens, I made a family connection to the characters.
I then gave the books to my 93 year old father, who could not put them down. Stories were told, relating to people, places, and the stories of the Ward. I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good story.
October 21, 2012
I enjoyed this book, but it is far too overwritten. The details are for the most part well done, but the author must have thought that his book would be considered a primary resource. It is those very details that bog down the tale without more exploration of the characters. Although the characters are well presented, given interesting situations and enough depth that we care about them, we never feel as if they are clearly defined. Because of this, as the story progresses, the narrative becomes lost in petty detail and the characters lack the dimension to keep us in the story.
April 2, 2015
Epic in every sense of the word
I don't recall how I came by this book. I thought it was historical fiction. Turns out its literary nonfiction, and pretty entertaining at that. The story of Buffalo during the last 60 years of the 18th century is fascinating. It's also long. I don't know how long it would be in print, but I daresay it would make a good doorstop. Warning: it ends on a cliffhanger, and there's a sequel.
I don't recall how I came by this book. I thought it was historical fiction. Turns out its literary nonfiction, and pretty entertaining at that. The story of Buffalo during the last 60 years of the 18th century is fascinating. It's also long. I don't know how long it would be in print, but I daresay it would make a good doorstop. Warning: it ends on a cliffhanger, and there's a sequel.
August 29, 2024
History Lesson
I grew up in South buffalo. Love the first ward. This book is a well written detailed history of the people, politics and geography of the first ward.
I grew up in South buffalo. Love the first ward. This book is a well written detailed history of the people, politics and geography of the first ward.
December 2, 2012
I enjoyed this novel, which the author appropriately descried as a “scrapbook of sorts.” Despite a few insignificant editing errors, each chapter was well written and engaging.
As a whole, the book suffered from the author’s choice not to make choices. Mr. Sullivan simply included too much. For example, the chapters regarding Katie Hansen—though interesting, and well composed—were irrelevant to the story. Personally, I was interested in the sections where the author got down into the weeds of historic incidents, such as the insights surrounding the Fenian invasion of Canada. However, some of these detailed accounts did greater harm than good to the rhythm of the novel.
Additionally, I feel that Mr. Sullivan had made a marketing error is playing up the role of Mark Twain. The segment of the book that included Twain was, gain, well done, and seems historically accurate, but Twain does not prove critical to the on-going family drama. Since this was a novel, it may have helped to reintroduce Twain, or at least the Twain-influence, more explicitly in the life of Jim Sullivan.
As a fictionalized account of one family and the subculture of Buffalo’s main Irish neighborhood, The First Wards book succeeds. As a novel, it needs to be re-edited. Overall, I liked the book, and I recommend it to my friends with Buffalo Irish roots.
As a whole, the book suffered from the author’s choice not to make choices. Mr. Sullivan simply included too much. For example, the chapters regarding Katie Hansen—though interesting, and well composed—were irrelevant to the story. Personally, I was interested in the sections where the author got down into the weeds of historic incidents, such as the insights surrounding the Fenian invasion of Canada. However, some of these detailed accounts did greater harm than good to the rhythm of the novel.
Additionally, I feel that Mr. Sullivan had made a marketing error is playing up the role of Mark Twain. The segment of the book that included Twain was, gain, well done, and seems historically accurate, but Twain does not prove critical to the on-going family drama. Since this was a novel, it may have helped to reintroduce Twain, or at least the Twain-influence, more explicitly in the life of Jim Sullivan.
As a fictionalized account of one family and the subculture of Buffalo’s main Irish neighborhood, The First Wards book succeeds. As a novel, it needs to be re-edited. Overall, I liked the book, and I recommend it to my friends with Buffalo Irish roots.
October 29, 2014
Don't waste your time on this book. I read all 394 pages of it and was thoroughly enjoying it, the story building up to what I thought would be a climactic conclusion when the story ended abruptly and I was left hanging with one of the main characters being carted away in an ambulance.
The next thing I read was "Part II coming 2013."
Nowhere was the reader ever told that this was only Part I. Talk about a scam. I'll never read another of Sullivan's books no matter what kind of glowing reviews he gets. I'd like to have back the several hours I invested in this book.
Also the cover and teaser of the book are deceptive. It is a picture of Mark Twain and implies he's a major part of this book. Untrue; his role is very minor.
The next thing I read was "Part II coming 2013."
Nowhere was the reader ever told that this was only Part I. Talk about a scam. I'll never read another of Sullivan's books no matter what kind of glowing reviews he gets. I'd like to have back the several hours I invested in this book.
Also the cover and teaser of the book are deceptive. It is a picture of Mark Twain and implies he's a major part of this book. Untrue; his role is very minor.
November 5, 2012
It was interesting to read about Buffalo in the late 1800's, you know, just a few years before I was born there. It was fun trying to imagine the parts of the city that he described and, for the most part, they were places that I don't think I've ever been. It was an interesting story that could have been written a little better and there were a lot of editing errors, misspellings, etc.
I will read the next installment when it's published because the characters are very interesting and I can appreciate the historical context. I just wish it had been a little better written.
I will read the next installment when it's published because the characters are very interesting and I can appreciate the historical context. I just wish it had been a little better written.
April 16, 2013
Poor fiction, good history. This book is an historical fiction about life in Buffalo from about 1850 to 1900. It gives pretty nice accounts about what life was like for the working poor: the politics, housing, hazards and small celebrations. It will not make you long for peaceful long ago times.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews