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Boss Tweed
1823–1878 · 55 years
Stole New York blind and was loved for what he delivered
The chairs came from Scotland. Tweed's grandfather crossed from a town near the River Tweed, and by the 1820s the family was making furniture on Cherry Street, where William M. Tweed was born on April 3, 1823. He left school at 11 for his father's trade, apprenticed to a saddler, studied bookkeeping and made brushes. What he was good at was men. In 1848 he and some friends founded the Americus Fire Company No. 6, the Big Six, whose emblem, a snarling red Bengal tiger off a French lithograph, stayed attached to him for life. He lost a race for alderman in 1850, won it the next year, and went to Congress in 1853 for a single term that left no mark.
From 1858 he sat on the Board of Supervisors, where vendors wanting city business paid the ring 15 percent. Grand Sachem of Tammany by 1863, he bought a new city charter in 1870 with 600,000 dollars in bribes to Albany Republicans, which made him one of three men auditing every city bill. The county courthouse, budgeted at 250,000 dollars, absorbed more than 11 million, including 350,000 for carpet and 3 million to one plasterer. An aldermen's committee in 1877 put the ring's take at 25 million to 45 million dollars. Later estimates run to 200 million. None is secure.
The reason people voted for him is usually left out. Tammany under Tweed ran naturalization committees that filled in immigrants' paperwork, produced witnesses and lent them the fee, and it handed out coal, food, jobs and a word with a judge when no public agency did. He built orphanages, almshouses and public baths, fought the King James Bible requirement in public schools, and pushed state money toward Catholic charities. Between 1869 and 1871 New York spent more on charity than in the 17 years from 1852 to 1868 combined. He put the Brooklyn Bridge through and took bridge stock for it, secured the land for the Metropolitan Museum, widened Broadway. It was paid for by theft, and both halves are true. Fiorello La Guardia ran the same city 60 years later on federal grants and a civil service list.
Thomas Nast had been drawing him in Harper's Weekly since 1869, the bulk, the diamond in the shirtfront, the Tammany tiger loose in the arena. Tweed knew what that was worth. Stop them damned pictures, he said. His constituents could not read what the papers printed, but they could not help seeing the pictures. Convicted in 1873, he escaped a home visit in December 1875 and got as far as Vigo in Spain, where officials identified him from a Nast cartoon. He died of pneumonia in the Ludlow Street Jail on April 12, 1878. Leo Hershkowitz has argued the case against him was largely a Republican press campaign. Most historians disagree. The drawings outlasted the argument.
Lifespan
Boss Tweed's life against the full span of the corpus.
Notable works
-
Americus Fire Company No. 6
other
The Big Six. Its red Bengal tiger became the Tammany tiger. 1848 -
New York County Courthouse
building
Begun in 1861 on a 250,000 dollar budget and still unfinished a decade later. It carries his name now. 1861 -
Adjusted Claims Act
law
Gave the Board of Audit the bonding power the ring ran on. 1868 -
Tammany naturalization committees
other
Filled in immigrants' papers, produced witnesses, lent them the fee. The new citizens voted. 1868 -
The Tweed Charter
law
Returned power to City Hall and put every city bill in the hands of three auditors, one of them Tweed. 1870 -
State aid to private charities
law
Money to schools, hospitals and orphanages of every denomination, Catholic ones included. 1869
Life in brief
with age at each point- April 3, 1823 aged 0 Born at 1 Cherry Street on the Lower East Side Third generation of a Scottish chairmaking family.
- 1848 aged ~25 Founds the Americus Fire Company No. 6 and is elected its foreman The Big Six took a snarling red Bengal tiger as its emblem. It outlived the company and the man.
- 1858 aged ~35 Appointed to the Board of Supervisors Vendors who wanted city contracts paid the ring a 15 percent surcharge.
- April 1863 aged 39 Becomes Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall People started calling him Boss. It was never a title he held.
- 1870 aged ~47 The Tweed Charter becomes law Roughly 600,000 dollars in bribes to Albany Republicans bought it.
- July 29, 1871 aged 48 The New York Times prints the ring's own ledgers A four-page supplement headlined Gigantic Frauds of the Ring Exposed. The paper had turned down a reported 5 million dollars to suppress it.
- November 1873 aged 50 Convicted on 204 of 220 counts at his second trial The first, in January, ended with a hung jury. A 12-year sentence was cut to one year on appeal.
- December 4, 1875 aged 52 Escapes during a home visit and flees through Cuba to Spain Identified at Vigo from a Nast cartoon and handed to the USS Franklin, he was back in New York on November 23, 1876.
- April 12, 1878 aged 55 Dies of pneumonia in the Ludlow Street Jail Mayor Smith Ely Jr. refused to lower the flag at City Hall. He was buried at Green-Wood in Brooklyn.
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