Connections to the Tweed Ring ruined his political career, in spite of the absence of evidence to show personal involvement in corrupt activities.

His father's parents, Philip L. Hoffman and Helena Kissam, were "among the most valuable members of early society in New York, and the founders of many public charities and benevolent works," Harper's Weekly effused.

[1] He attended Union College starting in 1843 in the junior class, but had to leave for a time due to ill health, eventually graduating in 1846.

A front-page article in Harper's Weekly intoned: It is many years since the city of New York has chosen for her Chief Magistrate a man of the position and reputation of John T. Hoffman.

Tweed, in actuality, had little interest in national affairs (he had been a congressman for a single term in the 1850s), and while he might have considered the possible corruption pickings greater he also was aware of the bad publicity such scandals had brought on the Grant administration.