Abraham Oakey Hall (26 July 1826-7 October 1898) was the Democratic Mayor of New York City from 4 January 1869 to 31 December 1872, succeeding Thomas Coman and preceding William Frederick Havemeyer.
Biography[]
Abraham Oakey Hall was born in Albany, New York in 1826, and he moved to New Orleans in 1846 to apprentice at a local law firm. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1851 and settled in New York City, becoming an assistant district attorney that same year and serving as district attorney from 1855 to 1857 as a Whig. He was re-elected in 1861 as a Republican before winning re-election in 1864 and 1867 as a Tammany Hall Democrat. Hall served as Mayor from 1869 to 1872, and he was widely reviled for his failure to prevent Orange Order-Irish Catholic violence and for his corruption. He later suffered numerous nervous breakdowns, and he divided his time between London and New York, advocating for municipal reform in London and defending anarchist agitator Emma Goldman's freedom of speech in court in 1894. He died in 1898.