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INTRODUCTION
After John Morrissey had purchased the Broadway prop
erty Professor Thomas moved downtown, and in August,
187s, opened Thomas's Exchange at No. 3 Barclay Street,
which soon became as popular as any of his other places.
Morrissey operated the Broadway house as a pool room for
a year or so,when it again came into the hands of the Profes
sor, and was remodeled as a theater. It opened with a min
strel show in which Lew Dockstader made his first hit as a
comedian. Dockstader's brother Charley was also a member
of the company,as were TommyTurner,Billy Bryant,Frank
Kent, and Charley White, then the dean of minstrelsy. It
was soon after he opened his Barclay Street bar that Pro
fessor Thomas began to form his notable collection of gourds,
which soon crowded cartoons and caricatures out of his
mind, and within a few months literally covered the walls
of his back room.
Professor Thomas's business rivals included many cele-
brated bartenders, for this was the golden age of the Amer
ican saloon, and Manhattan Island was dotted with high-
class establishments from the Battery northward to Spuyten
Duyvil,presided over by men who took their profession seri
ously and strove mightily to bring it to perfection. A noted
barroom of the period was the Tall Tower in the basement
of The Tribune building at Spruce and Nassau Streets,which
in earlier years had been the site of the original Tammany
Hall, and before that of Martling's Restaurant, commonly
called the Pig Pen, where the Tammany organization held
its first meetings. The Tall Tower was much frequented by
editors and reporters of The Times, The Tribune and other
newspapers which had their plants on Printing House Square.
It was owned by Koster & Bial, who were also the proprie
tors of the famous music hall which bore their name, and
Charley Sander was the Principal Bartender. Sander was a
young man when he presumed to compete with Professor
Thomas as a drink mixer, but he could wiggle his ears, and
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