page_title: William Frederick Havemeyer
section_title: Return to politics
hierarchical_section_title: William Frederick Havemeyer / Career / Return to politics
caption_attribution_description: English: A newspaper clipping depicting the death of New York Mayor 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 (credit: http://www.officemuseum.com/desks.htm). I believe the image to be in fair use as both a historically significant photo of a famous individual and shows the subject of this article and illustrates how the event depicted as historically significant to the general public. A 1874 document cannot possibly still be under copyright. Gnosticdogma 21:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
context_page_description: William Frederick Havemeyer was a German American businessman and politician of New York who served three times as Mayor of New York City during the 19th century.
context_section_description: In 1859, he was nominated by Tammany Hall to run against Democratic candidate Fernando Wood, who had lost favor with some of the Tammany factions, and the Republican candidate George Opdyke.  Havemeyer narrowly lost 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 urged the abolition of slavery as a war measure. In July 1866, Havemeyer was selected, along with Thurlow Weed, as arbitrator in the matter of a controversy relative to certain claims which had been pending for more than ten years between the Board of Public Charities and Correction and the Board of Commissioners of Emigration involving an amount of more than $100,000. The report was accepted as satisfactory by both parties, and the controversy settled.
  In the wake the Boss Tweed financial scandal, which forced 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 associations in all the city's assembly districts. He was chosen chairman of a noted mass reform meeting held at Cooper Union on 4 September 1871, and his speech on that occasion was one of the most fearless and outspoken of any in its denunciation of the official thieves.
  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 1 October 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 he once again returned to successfully defeat Tammany Hall candidate Abraham R. Lawrence and James O'Brien to be elected and become Mayor for a third time, the first candidate since DeWitt Clinton to do so.
  During his third term, in the reorganization of the city government political organization under the Charter of 1873, several of his nominations were opposed by the Board of Aldermen. The greater part of his time was spent in wrangles with the aldermen and other city officers. Several of his appointments were controversial, for example, he reappointed two police commissioners who had been convicted of violating their oaths of office. An application was made to the Governor of New York for his removal from office, a step which the executive declined to take.
caption: 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, December 1874)
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