The Tammany organisation did not in the beginning take its rise in New York. It first sprang into being in the ranks of the revolutionary army of Pennsylvania. Tammany, or Tamanend, as he was then called, was adopted by the Pennsylvanian troops under General Washington as their patron saint. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, it was Hobson’s choice, for St. Tammany was the only native American who had ever been canonised; and, in the second place, nothing seemed more appropriate to the revolutionary heroes than to adopt as their patron saint a brave who had “whipped the Devil.” St. Tammany, therefore, came to be adopted by the American army as a kind of counterpart to our own St. George. St. Tammany and the Devil seemed to be a good counterpoise to the legendary tale of St. George and the Dragon. The 12th of May was Tammany’s Saint’s Day, and was celebrated with wigwams, liberty poles, tomahawks, and all the regular paraphernalia of the Redskin. A soldier attired in Indian costume represented the great Sachem, “and, after delivering a talk full of eloquence for law and liberty and courage in battle to the members of the order, they danced with feathers in their caps and buck tails dangling on behind.” The practice spread from the Pennsylvania troops to the rest of the army, and so popular did Tammany become that May 12th bid fair to be much more a popular national festival than July 4th. It was not until this century had begun that the Tammany Society was domiciled in New York. It was introduced there by an upholsterer of Irish descent, named William Mooney. He did not take much stock in St. Tammany, but preferred to call his Society the Columbian Order, in honour of Columbus. The transactions of the Society dated from the discovery of America. Besides the European head, who was to be known as the Great Father, there were to be twelve Sachems, or counsellors--“Old Men” being the Indian signification of the word; a Sagamore, or master of ceremonies; a Wiskinkie, or doorkeeper of the sacred wigwam; and a Secretary. The Society from its outset appears to have been political, but in its early days it combined charity with politics. In the second year of its existence it undertook the establishment of a Museum of Natural History, and got together the exhibits which formed the nucleus of Barnum’s famous museum. It was a social and convivial club, which met first in a hotel of Broadway, then in a public-house in Broad Street, and finally in the Pig-pen, a long room attached to a saloon kept by one Martling. In 1811 it erected a hall of its own. Its present address is “Tammany Hall, Fourteenth Street.”