A. OAKEY HALL - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED CHECK 12/31/1870 CO-SIGNED BY: RICHARD B. CONNOLLY - HFSID 86792

TWEED RING: A. OAKEY HALL and RICHARD B. CONNOLLY
The Tweed Ring members sign their names on a check for the amount of $93.75
Check signed: "A. Oakey Hall" as Mayor of New York City, "Richard B. Connolly" as Comptroller and "J.B. Touny" as Clerk Board of Supervisors, 8x4. New York, 1870 December 31. Check No. 6232, drawn on the "Salaries Judiciary" account at the National Broadway Bank, payable to "Thomas J. Doran or P.H. Kingsland, Assy...for Salary as Recording Clerk County Clerks Office, for December 1870"for $93.75. Endorsed on verso: "P H Kingsland/Ass." Beautifully engraved check with an ornate border and vignette of an old sailor, an Indian, a ship and an eagle. ABRAHAM OAKEY HALL (1826-1898), who was known as "Elegant Oakey", was Mayor of New York City from 1869-1872. Hall controlled the city without interference, as he was one of the "henchmen" of William A. "Boss" Tweed. The Tweed Ring, which also included City Comptroller RICHARD B. CONNOLLY and City Chamberlain Peter B. Sweeny, defrauded the city and openly bought votes, encouraged judicial corruption and controlled New York City politics. Boss Tweed had the legislature authorize a City charter that gave the City government more autonomy and home rule. Understanding the value of public works, he actively sought rapid expansion of the City's physical infrastructure, extending streets and sewers to most of Manhattan on the East and West sides of Central Park and the sleepy, farming village of Harlem to the North. City judges became notoriously corrupt, but attempts within Tammany Hall, the state's Democratic political machine, to oust the Tweed Ring failed, and in 1870 Tweed forced through the state legislature a charter that greatly increased the powers of the ring. Tweed maintained personal popularity because of his openhandedness and charity to the poor, but the publication in "The New York Times" of evidence of wholesale graft (revealed by M. J. O'Rourke, a new county bookkeeper) and the effective cartoons of Thomas Nast that aroused public indignation and led to the dissolution of the Tweed Ring - and the removal of Hall from office. Estimates of the amount of money lost to the Tweed Ring by New York City range from $30 million to $200 million. After leaving office, Hall, who had previously been the city's District Attorney before being hand selected as Mayor by Tweed, was an unsuccessful playwright before resuming his law practice. Ink blot touches the "A" of Hall's signature. Bank cut cancellation, not at signatures. Slightly soiled. Fine condition.