William M. Tweed has begun to form…

William M. Tweed has begun to form what will become known as the "Tweed Ring", by having his friends elected to office: George G. Barnard had been elected Recorder of New York City; Peter B. Sweeny had been elected New York County District Attorney; and Richard B. Connolly had been elected City Comptroller.

Tweed was born April 3, 1823 at 1 Cherry Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The son of a third-generation Scottish-Irish chair-maker, Tweed had grown up on Cherry Street.

At the age of eleven, he had left school to learn his father's trade, and then became an apprentice to a saddler.

He had also studied to be a bookkeeper and worked as a brushmaker for a company he had invested in, before eventually joining in the family business in 1852.

On September 29, 1844, he had married Mary Jane C. Skaden, and had lived with her family on Madison Street for two years.

Tweed had become a member of the Odd Fellows and the Masons, and had joined a volunteer fire company, Engine No. 12.

In 1848, at the invitation of state assemblyman John J. Reilly, he and some friends had organized the Americus Fire Company No. 6, also known as the "Big Six", as a volunteer fire company, which took as its symbol a snarling red Bengal tiger, a symbol which will remain associated with Tweed and Tammany Hall for many years.

At the time, volunteer fire companies competed vigorously with each other; some were connected with street gangs and had strong ethnic ties to various immigrant communities.

The competition could be so fierce that buildings would sometimes burn down while the fire companies fought each other.

Tweed had became known for his ax-wielding violence, and had soon been elected the Big Six foreman.

Pressure from Alfred Carlson, the chief engineer, had gotten him thrown out of the crew, but fire companies were also recruiting grounds for political parties at the time, and Tweed's exploits had come to the attention of the Democratic politicians who ran the Seventh Ward, who had put him up for Alderman in 1850, when Tweed was twenty-six.

Losing that election to the Whig candidate, he had run again the next year and won, garnering his first political position.

Tweed had won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1852, but his two-year term was undistinguished.

In an attempt by Republican reformers in Albany, the state capital, to control the Democratic-dominated New York City government, the power of the New York County Board of Supervisors had been beefed up.

The board has twelve members, six appointed by the mayor and six elected, and in 1858 Tweed had been appointed to the board, which became his first vehicle for large-scale graft; Tweed and other supervisors had forced vendors to pay a fifteen percent overcharge to their "ring" in order to do business with the city.

By 1853, Tweed was running the seventh ward for Tammany.

Although he was not trained as a lawyer, Tweed's friend Judge George G. Barnard had certified him as an attorney, and Tweed had opened a law office on Duane Street.

Defeated in his bid for sheriff in 1861, he had become the chairman of the Democratic General Committee shortly after the election, and had then been chosen to be the head of Tammany's general committee in January 1863.

Several months later, in April 1863, he had become "Grand Sachem", and began to be referred to as "Boss", especially after he tightened his hold on power by creating a small executive committee to run the club.

Tweed then took steps to increase his income: he used his law firm to extort money, which was then disguised as legal services; he had himself appointed deputy street commissioner—a position with considerable access to city contractors and funding; he bought the New-York Printing Company, which became the city's official printer, and the city's stationery supplier, the Manufacturing Stationers' Company, and had both companies begin to overcharge for their goods and services.