The society showed its Indian ceremonies to advantage and gained much prestige by aiding in the conciliation of the Creek Indians. After useless attempts to make a treaty with them, the Government undertook, as a last resort, in February, 1790, to influence Alexander McGillivray, their half-breed chief, to visit New York, where he might be induced to sign a treaty. To Col. Marinus Willett, a brave soldier of the Revolution, and later Mayor of New York City, the mission was intrusted. In July, 1790, Willett started North accompanied by McGillivray and twenty-eight Creek chiefs and warriors. Upon their arrival in New York, then the seat of the National Government, the members of the Tammany Society, in full Indian costume, welcomed them. One phase of the tale has it that the Creeks set up a wild whoop, at whose terrifying sound the Tammany make-believe red-faces fled in dismay. Another version tells that the Tammany Society and the military escorted the Indians to Secretary Knox’s house, introduced them to Washington and then led them to the Wigwam at Barden’s Tavern, where seductive drink was served. On August 2 the Creeks were entertained at a Tammany banquet. A treaty was signed on August 13. In June of the same year Tammany had established, in the old City Hall, a museum “for the preservation of Indian relics.” For a brief while the society devoted itself with assiduity to this department, but the practical men grew tired of it. On June 25, 1795, the museum was given over to Gardiner Baker, its curator, on condition that it was to be known for all time as the Tammany Museum and that each member of the society and his family were to have entrance free. Baker dying, the museum eventually passed into the hands of a professional museum-owner. Tammany’s chief functions at first seem to have been the celebration of its anniversary day, May 12; the Fourth of July and Evacuation Day. The society’s parades were events in old New York. On May 12, 1789, the day of organization, two marquees were built two miles above the city, whither the Tammany brethren went to hold their banquet. Thirteen discharges of cannon followed each toast. The first one read: “May Honor, Virtue and Patriotism ever be the distinguishing characteristics of the sons of St. Tammany.” John Pintard,[4] Tammany’s first Sagamore, wrote an account[5] of the society’s celebration of May 12, 1791. “The day,” he says,