Poole was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, to parents of English descent. Herbert Asbury website In 1832, his family moved to New York City to open a butcher shop in Washington Market, Manhattan. Skilled in his father's trade and eventually took over the family store. In the 1840s, he worked with the Howard (Red Rover) Volunteer Fire Engine Company #34, on Hudson and Christopher Streets, and started the Washington Street Gang which later became the Bowery Boys. During this period in New York fires were a huge problem for the city. Volunteer fire groups, such as the one Poole was in, were important for keeping fires under control. These firefighting groups were closely tied with street gangs and were seen as a public service provided by those groups. There were rivalries between the fire companies to put fires down in the neighborhood. One of the strategies that Bowery Boys used to ensure that other fire engine companies could not put out the fires was once hearing the alarm sound, a Bowery Boy would find the nearest fire hydrant to the fire and flip over an empty barrel over the fire hydrant and sit on the barrel, so it could not be seen or used. The Bowery Boy would sit on the barrel until his own fire engine arrived; however, fights over the fire hydrant would break out, and sometimes the Bowery Boys had no time to actually extinguish the fire.
