Caricature of himself
by Thomas Nast

As long as I can remember, people have remarked on how much I resemble the Boss Tweed character drawn by the political cartoonist Thomas Nast. You can imagine just how much this flattered me. Anyway, Mr. Nast did do really great work, and I would like to say that seeing me poking at crabs at a Chincoteague restaurant or sun-bathing on Assateague beach may have inspired him, but chronology - that nemesis spawn of Father Time - speaks against this. Anyway, here's a little information on this fine gentleman.

Thomas Nast (1840-1902)

Thomas Nast was born in Landau Germany, and at the age of six, he moved with his mother to New York City. At 15 Mr. Nast served as an artist for the Illustrated Newspaper, and four years later he started contributing cartoons to Harper’s Weekly. After a year (1860-61) of drawing pictures in Europe for the New York Illustrated News, Nast returned to the U.S. and joined the staff of Harper’s Weekly as a political cartoonist. His cartoons contributed to the demise of the Tweed Ring, a group of corrupt politicians busy plundering the treasury of New York City. In 1886 he left Harper’s to publish his own magazine, Nast’s Weekly. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him consul general at Guayaquil, Ecuador. He died in the same year of an illness.