Wicked Victorian Boston
Ah Moy Chong
Leader of Chinatown's Moy company.
This picture from the Boston Herald, March 15, 1886, shows Ah Moy Chong playing fan tan at a gambling hall on Harrison Avenue in Chinatown. He was the leader of the Moy company, which specialized in gambling, opium and extortion. In Boston, the Chinese crime organizations were known as companies, in other parts of the country they were called tongs or hatchet societies. Ah Moy Chong wore a black slouch hat but otherwise dressed in Chinese style. He carried a bamboo cane, wore a long Chinese knife in his belt and in his pockets carried a revolver and a blackjack. Allegedly, Ah Moy Chong had killed three men in California. In Boston, he drove his rival, Ching Foo of the Ching company, out of town at gunpoint
