Gaster, Dexter Sidney

Submitted by Mike Miller

Dexter Sidney Gaster, superintendent of police of the city of New Orleans. In the long array of legal functionaries which are necessary in the interests of justice, the office of superintendent of police must be regarded as a primary and important one, and is one which to be conducted successfully requires more than ordinary perspicuity and great natural ability. A thoroughly intelligent and representative officer is to be found in Mr. Gaster, who is a native of the state of Ohio. He was born January 28, 1844, in the beautiful village of Hayesville, and his early boyhood was spent in attending the country schools, where he received an education enabling him to begin intelligently the battle of life. On the breaking out of the Civil war he enlisted in an Ohio cavalry regiment, and for bravery and soldierly qualities was promoted to the rank of sergeant. When the war had ended he came South and settled in New Orleans, where he identified himself with the interests of the people and became one of them. He first became connected with the police in 1867 and in 1869 was made a sergeant and placed in command of the second precinct. In September, 1874, he resigned, but on the reorganization of the city government under Mayor Pilsbury, in 1877, he again joined the force. Col. Thomas N. Boylan, who was chief of police, soon discovered in the quiet patrolman, Gaster, a man who not only always attended to his duties, but who, when occasion required it, exhibited an intelligent insight in the manipulation of complicated cases. For these qualifications he was selected as an aid to the chief. Here he started in on a career of honor and success. He was soon handling the most difficult cases, and pursued his calling with industry and the ambition to gain legitimate fame and to rise in his profession. By his aid and skill, and ofttimes working on the most slender of threads, he has been able to bring the perpetrators of many a foul and black murder to reap the fate they have so rightly deserved. He was instrumental in capturing and convicting Johnson, the ship burner; the Meade murderers and the notorious burglar, Bartley McGee. These were all big cases and their successful termination reflected great credit upon Detective Gaster. On the assassination of Supt. D. C. Hennessy, a grave responsibility confronted the police authorities. The secret service work of the department was placed in the hands of D. S. Gaster, and he conducted it with consummate skill and in the end wove the toils about the jury bribers and succeeded in landing two of them in the penitentiary. The bulk of this work was done after he had been elected superintendent, and when ho had the power to conduct his investigations according to his own theories and plans. Superintendent Gaster is not a showy man and makes no attempt to dazzle people by loud or boastful utterances, but he is a quiet, solid man, who goes right along in the true line of his work and accomplishes all that his position calls for. He has agents and representatives in all parts, and has earned for himself the reputation of a careful, shrewd and painstaking officer, who allows no clue for the working up of a case to escape him.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 1), p. 439. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.