John Tweedy (208)

John Tweedy (c. 1707–15 November 1787) was an apothecary and a prominent citizen of Newport, Rhode Island, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Little is known of his early years, but by adulthood he had established a thriving business selling drugs, patent medicines, and surgical instruments, many of them imported from England. By 1760 he had expanded his business beyond Newport, establishing a partnership with Patrick Carryl in York City and setting up his eldest son as an apothecary in Philadelphia. A catalogue Tweedy published around that time listed over six-hundred medicines for sale. He subscribed to the Redwood Library, signed a petition to the king concerning paper currency in 1750, collected donations for the sufferers of a 1760 fire in Boston, and directed a lottery to fund local street-paving in 1763. Tweedy supported the patriot cause during the American Revolution but did not play an active role therein. He died in 1787. (PI)