The real result of these transfers, however, was merely to make two strongholds of corruption instead of one. The Republican power in Albany and the Tammany power in New York City found it to their interests to arrange terms for the distribution of patronage and booty. Accordingly, as one means to that end, the Board of Supervisors for New York County was created. It was founded strictly as a State institution. Unlike the Boards of Supervisors of other counties, it had no power to tax. It could only ascertain and levy the taxes decreed by the State Legislature, which was required to pass yearly a special act declaring the amount necessary for the maintenance of the city government. It was to be an elective body, and each side was to have an equal quota of the twelve members. But in the first board convened, this delicate balance was upset, as has been shown, by the buying of a Republican member, which in effect gave Tammany a majority. William M. Tweed was born in Cherry street in 1823. He spent the usual life of a New York boy. His father was a chairmaker in good circumstances and gave his children a fair education. Fascinated, as were most New York boys of the period, with the life of a volunteer fireman, he became a runner with Engine 12 before he was of age, and in 1849 he was elected foreman of another fire company. Carrying a silver-mounted trumpet, a white fire-coat over his arm and wearing an old-fashioned stiff hat, he led the ropes. So popular was young Tweed that he became a powerful factor in ward politics, and gifted with the qualities that counted most in those circles, he was not slow in utilizing his popularity. The Americus Club, for a long time Tweed’s favorite quarters, and at times the place where Tammany politics were determined, was started with him as its foremost luminary. Though defeated for Assistant Alderman in 1850, he was elected the next year and served in the “Forty Thieves” Board. He was a delegate, in 1852, to the Congressional convention of the Fifth District, composed of two East Side wards of New York City, and Williamsburg. A deadlock ensued, through each of two candidates polling forty-four votes. Finally the Williamsburg delegates “threw over” their favorite and voted for Tweed, who as chairman of the convention, cast the deciding vote for himself, with the statement that “Tweedie never goes back on Tweedie.” He was elected, but beaten for reelection, in 1854, by the “Know-Nothings.” The latter he fought so persistently that he became known as the champion of the foreign element. He was made a Sachem of the Tammany Society because of his extreme popularity, and in 1857 he was elected to the Board of Supervisors. Selling his business of chairmaking, he thereupon devoted his entire time to politics.