father listed in the city directory, then in its fifth year, as a
blacksmith; address, Rutgers Street. No number is given.
That meant little then, as Rutgers Street could be distanced by
a small boy in five minutes, and malodorous rookeries, swarm-
ing like rabbit warrens, were unknown.

In the year that Phillip Tweed is first listed, his wife bore
him a son, Richard. While Richard was an infant his father
determined that the son must not follow the trade that the
Tweeds for two generations had carried on in the new country.
They had made a living, but that was all. There was a man
down on John Street whose horses he shod in those days, a
mechanic like himself, but a man of property and distinction.
He was Thomas Ash (sometimes spelled Ashe), a chairmaker.
He was Foreman of the Fire Department, and Treasurer of
Tammany Hall. What blacksmith could hope for such honors?
And what blacksmith could put on the tone that Ash the
chairmaker could? Treasurer of Tammany Hall and Foreman
in the Fire Department!

So when Richard Tweed was old enough to work, that is,
when he was able to find his way about the neighborhood, he
was apprenticed to a chairmaker who, like Ash, specialized in
fashioning Windsor chairs. And each morning that the ap-
prentice set forth for the shop of his master, he had held
before him for example, Thomas Ash, chairmaker, man of
property, Foreman of the Fire Department, and Treasurer of
Tammany Hall.

Young Richard became known as one of the finest chair-
makers in the city. He branched out for himself on reaching
manhood, and opened a shop at 24 Cherry Street. He mar-
ried one of the belles of the neighborhood, and started a home
a few steps away from his shop, on the top of Cherry Hill, at
No. 1 Cherry Street.

In 1819, when three children had blessed the union of Richard
and Eliza Tweed, yellow fever made one of its periodical and
devastating visits to the city. One of its victims was a young
Virginian who had come to the city on business. He brought
with him a young Negro, who, after finding his master dead,
did what wealthy freemen did when fever visited New York --

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