New York City’s first police force was created in 1845, but before then, the streets of New York City were “protected” by a ragtag group of incompetents called the Watchmen and Roundsmen.

The Watchers first emerged in the late 1700s, when the Dutch ruled New York City. His job was little more than patrolling the streets at night, looking for potential disturbances but mostly avoiding them. They also shouted the hours of the night, with statements as silly as: “For the grace of God, the two of you in peace.” Or, “By the grace of God, four o’clock and a cold, raw morning.”

Watchmen carried no weapons, except for a 33-inch club. And they wore no uniform except for a leather fireman’s hat, which they refinished twice a year, making the hat rock-hard. Hence the name “Leatherheads”. They were also called “Old Charlies”, which was also not a term of endearment.

Starting in 1829, Watchmen were required by New York City ordinance to declare fires. If they saw smoke, the Rangers would call out the name of their post or the street of the fire. There was also a street curfew stating that anyone seen outdoors after 9 pm was considered to be of “bad morals”. It was the duty of the Watchers to arrest anyone they caught wandering the streets at night, then take them to the local jail, to lock them up until dawn. Watchmen’s pay was a dollar a night. They were also paid an additional fifty cents to attend Special Court Sessions as witnesses, to testify about any particular crimes they might have seen while on duty, which almost never happened.

The criminals and gangs of New York City had little respect for the Watchmen, who numbered only 30 or 40 in the entire city. The Watchmen were considered to be neither very bright nor very ambitious, and were known to frequently get drunk on the job. Each Watchmen had a post, or watchbox, which consisted of a wooden shack without anchors, where they used to fall asleep on duty, usually after consuming large amounts of whiskey. One of the favorite activities of young ruffians all over town was to catch a Watcher sleeping in his watch box, tie the watch box together with rope, and drag him through the streets, screaming and screaming like banshees. Soon-to-be-famous writer Washington Irving was known to be one of those pranksters.

While the Watchmen patrolled New York City at night, the crime solvers, or Roundsmen, were the men on duty during the day. Roundsman considered themselves the plainclothes cops, or detectives, of the day, but solving crimes certainly wasn’t their strong suit. Roundsmen were usually common laborers, or longshoremen who could not find work in their chosen field of activity. As a result, they were not particularly adept at solving crimes or catching criminals.

Roundsmen were not paid a salary and earned their income solely by serving legal documents or collecting rewards from citizens for returning their stolen goods. This led some very enterprising Roundsmen to form alliances with criminal groups. The thieves would steal the goods and the victims would post a reward for the return of their property. The Roundsmen would then “find” the stolen property, collect the reward, and split it with the thieves.

Low on the Roundmen’s priority list was solving murders, as there was usually no reward given for finding the killer. The only way the Roundsmen could make a profit chasing the killers was if the victim’s family paid a bounty, and if the Roundsmen were lucky enough to catch the killer, which was highly unusual, he collected the bounty and another. City stipend for serving a subpoena on the perpetrator.

Due to their sheer incompetence, the Roundsmen and Watchmen were fast becoming an endangered species. It was the murder of Mary Rogers in 1841 that put the final nail in her coffin. With plenty of clues as to who the killer was, the Roundsmen dragged their heels long enough that they never found Roger’s killer.

By 1845, the public was fed up with the archaic system of Watchmen and Roundsmen acting like an incompetent, unindustrial quasi-police force. Spurred by press fury, New York City reformers dissolved the Watchmen and Roundsmen system and replaced it with a functional police department, which was later copied by many cities in the United States of America.