He was the owner of a Cherry Street dive bar, a popular underworld hangout located next to Dan Kerrigan's place, and co-led the Dead Rabbits with Kit Burns.
Tommy Hadden first came to prominence in New York's underworld as a Paradise Square street tough and brawler who eventually became leader of the Dead Rabbits, among other early Five Points gangs, with Kit Burns in the 1840s.
On the night in question, Hadden and two others lured Kehoe into a dark alley off Liberty Street whereupon the gang leader approached his victim from behind and "buried a slungshot into his brain".
[2] Hadden was one of several underworld figures involved in the so-called "Water Street Revival" when John Allen, a saloon-keeper known as the "Wickedest Man in New York", became the subject of a public crusade headed by lawyer and journalist Oliver Dyer.
After the close of Allen's saloon in 1868, it was claimed by A.C. Arnold and other ministers that Hadden and others had "reformed" their criminal ways and had turned over there establishments so that religious sermons could be held.
[5] The newspaper specifically charged Hadden with "playing the pious with the hope of being secured from trial before the Court of General Sessions for having recently shanghaied a Brooklynite, and also in consideration of a handsome moneyed arrangement with his employers".