William Frederick Havemeyer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Frederick Havemeyer (1804-1874)

The death of William Havemeyer, originally appearing as "Sudden Death of the Hon. William F. Havemeyer in his Office," New York, NY, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Dec. 1874)

William Frederick Havemeyer (February 12, 1804 – November 30, 1874) was a New York businessman and politician serving three times as the mayor of New York City from 1845-1846, 1848-1849 and from 1873 until his death in 1874.

Born in New York City, New York to German immigrants, Havemeyer received a liberal education attending Columbia College and Wykoff Village Academy, graduating from the former in 1823. Havemeyer was a successful sugar refiner when he retired in 1842 and entered local politics under the Democratic Party as an elector during the United States presidential election of 1844, before becoming elected mayor of New York from 1845-1846, and again in 1849-1850.

Taking his leave from New York's political scene, Havemeyer returned to business as a banker and, in 1851, was voted president of the Bank of North America; he successfully led that bank through the panic of 1857. He also became a large stockholder of the Pennsylvania Coal Company and Long Island Rail Road among insurance and other corporate interests.

In 1859, he was nominated by Tammany Hall to run against Democratic candidate Fernando Wood and Republican candidate George Opdyke narrowly losing to Wood 30,000 to 27,000 (Opdyke gained 23,000 votes). During the American Civil War, Havemeyer was a strong advocate of the Union and was and an early supporter of the abolition of slavery.^{[citation needed]}

In the wake the Boss Tweed financial scandal, forcing the political boss of Tammany Hall to flee the country, Havemeyer was named vice president of the political reform organization Committee of 70 and assisted in organizing Reform Association in the cites assembly districts. Largely involved in voting the corrupt Tweed administration out of office, Havemeyer was nominated by the Republican Party Convention as a candidate for Mayor of New York on October 1, 1872. Although he at first declined to accept the nomination, the decision was supported by the Committee of 70 and the United Reform Convention and once again returned to successfully defeat Tammany Hall candidate Abraham R. Lawrence and James O'Brian to become Mayor for a third time, the first candidate since DeWitt Clinton to do so. Although reorganizing the city government political organization with the Board of Alderman under the Charter of 1873, several of his nominations were opposed by the Board of Alderman and, among other scandals, Havemeyer's administration soon proved an unpopular one compared to his previous administration as Havemeyer later died while in office on November 30, 1874 and buried at the Bronx's Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. [1]