William Tweed was born on April 3rd, 1823 in Manhattan. When he was eleven, he left school and became an apprentice to a saddler. He also worked as brushmaker and joined in the family business when he married Mary Jane C Skaden, daughter of the owner. He lived with her family for two years.
Tweed became an alderman for New York City and quickly rose through the political ranks until he took control of the New York City government. He conned New York out of between 30-200 million dollars.
Thomas Nast started working on the downfall of Tweed, attacking him through various political cartoons. Tweed was afraid of his work, and offered him a large bribe that could send him to Europe to study art. Nast pretended to be interested in the money, and rose the original offer of $100,000 up to $500,000. And then, while Tweed's hopes of getting rid of him were high, Nast delivered his blow by saying, "I don't think I'll do it."
Tweed was arrested in 1873 and was convicted of fraud, but put up a $1 million bail and was released. Tammany tried recovering its position though the ballot box, and Tweed was re-elected in November to the state senate. He did this not only with the help of Tammany, but through his personal popularity as well. When Tammany didn't do as well as it had before, many of the Tweed Ring members fled, going overseas.
Tweed was re-arrested and forced to quit his position in the state senate. Again, he was given bail, but the price rose to $8 million. His trial resulted in convictions of 204 counts, a $12,750 fine, and a 12 year prison sentence. He served a year before the sentence was overturned, but was then sued by New York State trying to recover $6 million.
Unable to pay his bail, Tweed was locked away in the Ludlow Street Jail, but he was allowed to visit home. On one of his visits, he escaped and ran away to Spain, working as a seaman on a ship. Oddly enough, he was eventually recognized by from one of Thomas Nast's cartoons. The U.S. government quickly discovered where he was and arranged for his arrest. He was put on a U.S. warship and was handed over to authorities in New York City, where he was returned to prison. This is where he died on April 12, 1878 of pneumonia.
I'm not really sure how our political system let something like Boss Tweed happen, even back then. But then again, how did we let the holocaust happen? Not enough people were informed of what was going on, and people were tricked and conned into thinking something way different.
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