Biography of 	Gaster, Dexter Sidney Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by 	Mike Miller September 2000

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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.