The Research Desk · Behind The Hell Gate Treasure
Everyone knows how William Tweed’s story ends: the Tweed Ring, the stolen millions, Thomas Nast’s cartoons, and death in the Ludlow Street Jail in 1878. I was more curious about how it began.
Tweed was born on April 3, 1823, at 1 Cherry Street on the Lower East Side, a spot now buried under the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge. His middle name is often given as Marcy. It was Magear, his mother’s maiden name. His father was a chair maker, and young Bill left school at eleven to learn the trade. He was soon keeping the books for a saddler, and later for a brush business his father bought into. He was good with numbers, which explains a great deal about what came later.
His door into politics was a fire company. In the 1840s New York had no paid fire department. Neighborhood volunteer companies raced each other to fires, and sometimes fought each other while the building burned. Those companies were also political clubs, and a popular foreman had a following.
In 1848 Tweed helped organize a new one, Americus Engine Company No. 6, better known as Big Six. Its engine carried a painted snarling Bengal tiger. Tweed was elected foreman in 1849 and built a reputation for swinging an axe in a street brawl.
Big Six made him a name in his ward. He won a seat as alderman in 1852 and a single term in Congress the year after. On January 1, 1863, he was chosen to lead Tammany Hall’s general committee, and the nickname “Boss” followed once he rose to grand sachem.
The tiger outlived the fire company. It became the emblem of Tammany Hall, and Nast later drew it mauling the city. A painted panel from the Big Six engine, tiger and all, survives at the Smithsonian.
Why it’s in my filesTweed appears in The Hell Gate Treasure in 1863, the year he took charge of Tammany. He is a man on the rise, years before anyone called him a thief.
- “Tweed, William M(agear),” The Encyclopedia of New York City
- Americus Engine Company No. 6 panel painting, National Museum of American History
- “William M. Tweed,” Wikipedia
- M. D. Schutzman, research notes for The Hell Gate Treasure
