The Daybreak Boys was a New York City street gang during the mid nineteenth century. Formed in the late 1840s, by 1852 the teenaged Daybreak Boys were suspected by police to have been responsible for 20 to 40 murders between 1850 and 1852 as well as stealing goods estimated at $200,000. The gang was said to have a prospective member kill at least one man as a requirement for joining. Newspapers at the time report, perhaps with some exaggeration, that many gang members may have been as young as 12.