Benjamin F. Tweed Papers

Benjamin Franklin Tweed (January 17, 1811 - April 2, 1896) was a member of the first group of faculty teaching at the newly founded Tufts College. He taught Rhetoric, Logic and English Literature at Tufts College from 1854-1864 and was very popular with students.

Tweed was born in Wakefield (now Reading), MA, on January 17, 1811. He attended an academy in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, and taught in various district schools until 1835. He then obtained a position to teach at a school in Medford until he was offered the principalship of the Bunker Hill Grammar School in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1839. In 1854 he became professor for Rhetoric, Logic, and English Literature at Tufts College, which began teaching students before officially opening in 1855. Tweed left Tufts in 1864 to chair the Department of English Literature and Medieval and Modern History at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1870 he became the Superintendent of Schools in Charlestown and when Charlestown was incorporated with Boston he was appointed Supervisor for the district until his retirement in 1880.

Professor Tweed was a member of the American Institute of Instruction since its first meeting in 1830. He published various textbooks on English grammar and composition, articles in leading educational journals, and was the editor of the Massachusetts Teacher for several years. Based on his scholarship, Harvard University conferred him a degree of A. M. in 1853. Upon retirement, Professor Tweed lived with his daughter and her husband, Judge J. W. Hammond, a graduate of Tufts in 1861, in Cambridgeport until his death on April 2, 1896.