George Law an American financier, b. in Jackson, Washington Co., N.Y., 25 October 1806; d. in New York city, 18 November 1881.
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George Law was born in Jackson, New York and his only early education had been obtained in a winter night school. At age of eighteen he left his father's farm and after walking to Troy, he learned the trades of masonry and stonemasonry in Hoosic. Next he obtained employment on the Delaware and Hudson Canal in 1825, then superintended the making of canal-locks at High Falls. Afterward he went to the mountains of Pennsylvania to quarry stone for locks, and was employed as a mechanic on canals. In June, 1829, he obtained a contract for a small lock and aqueduct on the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Self taught he studied and made himself a good engineer and draughtsman and became a large contractor for the construction of railroads and canals.
In August, 1837, one of his brothers was engaged in the construction of the Croton waterworks. He went to New York city, where he obtained contracts for sections of the aqueduct. In 1839 he obtained the contract for the High Bridge, by which it crosses Harlem River. In 1842 he took on the management of the Dry Dock bank. Later he purchased and extended the New York and Harlem Railroad and Mohawk Railroad. He bought the steamer SS Neptune in 1843, then built the SS Oregon in 1845. With Marshall O. Roberts and Bowes R. McIlvaine he formed the U.S. Mail Steamship Company and assumed the contract to carry the US mails to California. The company built the SS Ohio and the SS Georgia and with the purchased SS Falcon in early 1849 carried the first passengers by steamship to Chagres, on the east coast of the Isthmus of Panama. Soon the rapid transit time the steamship lines and the trans isthumus passage made possible when the California Gold Rush began made it a very profitable company. That same year Law completed the High Bridge.
When the Pacific Mail Steamship Company established a competing line between New York and Chagres, George Law placed on the Pacific his own competing line of four steamerships, SS Antelope, SS Columbus, SS Isthumus and SS Republic. In April, 1851, the rivalry was ended when he purchased their steamers on the Atlantic side, and sold his new Pacific Line and its ships on the Panama City to San Francisco run. Impressd by the returns from the short amount of line of William Henry Aspinwall's Panama Railway, he acquired a large interest in the project in 1852. He went to the isthumus to examine the route, and located the terminus at Aspinwall, where he began to build the railroad depot next to the steamship wharf. Aspinwall soon became the destination of the Panama steamships once the railroad was finished.
Meanwhile, in New York he purchased the franchise of the Eighth Avenue street-railroad in New York. He sold his interest in the Panama Railroad in the winter of 1853. He then built the Ninth Avenue Railroad, and purchased the steam ferry to Staten Island, and the Grand and Roosevelt Street ferries between New York and Brooklyn.
Also in 1852 he had a quarrel with the Spanish Captain-general of Cuba, which brought him prominent public notice. The official was incensed because the purser of one of his vessels had published an offensive statement in a New York newspaper, and refused entrance to any vessel having him on board. The American government refused to support Law in his determination to send the SS Crescent City to Havana with the purser on board, and withdrew the mail when he persisted. He nevertheless despatched the steamship, and the Captain-general failed to carry out his threat to fire on her.[1][2][3] This gained him great notoriety and after this was called "Live-Oak George", from a nickname given him by workmen in his ship-yard. He attacked the administration, which he accused of cowardace in newspaper articles.
Because of his stand against the government inactivity in the face of an attack on a U. S. citizen and his bold demonstration of American prestige he was placed in nomination as the Native American Party or Know-Nothing candidate for the President of the United States in February, 1855, by the Pennsylvania legislature. Although he was supported by several newspapers the National convention in Philadelphia in 1856 chose the president whom Law had attacked, Millard Fillmore, to be the party candidate.
The U.S. Mail Steamship Company only operated for 11 years. On the expiration of the mail contract and its subsidy in 1859 the company withdrew from the business and sold its ships.[4]
Law had a steamship, George Law, named after him. It was later renamed Central America and is sometimes referred to as a "ship of gold". She sank in a three day and night hurricane carrying most of her passengers, gold bullion then valued at US$2,000,000 and Commander William Lewis Herndon down with her. The sinking of the ship with the loss so much gold set off the Panic of 1857.