Jacob Hays

In 1932, some eighty years after his death, Jacob Hays, or Old Hays, as he was known, was mythologized in the pages of the New Yorker by Herbert Asbury:

Tells of Jacob Hays, the first real detective of New York. He was known throughout his career as Old Hays, and in 1802 was appointed as chief of the day police force by Mayor Edward Livingston and gave him the title of High Constable of the City of New York. He occupied this post for half a century and was one of the most expert thief-takers New York ever had.

And ever since, writers have returned periodically to the figure of Hays, seeing him as a harbinger of modern policing.

Before the establishment of the New York Police Department in 1845, law enforcement was the purview of unpaid constables—two for each ward, serving under a high constable, appointed by the mayor. Most either didn’t take the job seriously or used it as an opportunity for pay-offs and bribes. But Hays, according to the lore, professionalized the role.

He was born in Bedford, New York, son of David Barrack and Esther Asher Hays. His grandfather—likewise Jacob Hays—had come over from Holland and served as shohet at Shearith Israel when his plan to mine silver in Rye, New York, went bust. His father was an innkeeper in Bedford and a Loyalist through much of the Revolutionary War, slyly switching sides when he the writing on the wall.

Apparently, it was Aaron Burr who got him started in policing, arranging for him to be appointed marshal in 1797. Four years later, he had ascended to constable of the Fifth Ward, and a year after that, in 1802, Mayor Edward Livingston named Hays high constable. Hays, according to the lore, brought a sense dignity to the position, but also a knack for meticulous detective work. He broke up several counterfeiting rings—a major crime of the time—even tracking these across state borders and into Canada.

He married a woman named Catherine Conroy, and after her death, in 1812, remarried to Mary Post. He father eleven children, who presumably didn’t get away with much.

In fact, in his later years, it is reported, his name was invoked to scare misbehaving children: “Old Hays will get you!” Already a myth in his own time: A citizen watch in White Plains, New York, in 1828 took the name the Jacob Hays Club.

Jacob Hays

1839