Byron Mercer (died 1878) was an American businessman and the owner of Mercer Steel. A Bourbon Democrat supportive of Mayor Samuel Blake and US Senator Robert Crestwood, he prided himself on hiring white labor while other businesses employed Chinese cheap labor, but Deputy Mayor Walter Buckley forced him to hire Chinese laborers as part of a plot to stoke racial tensions in the city. This led to Dylan Leary's Workingmen attacking Mercer's Chinese laborers in 1878, and a fearful Mercer died of a heart attack in his office.
Biography[]
Byron Mercer, the owner of Mercer Steel, became a powerful industralist in San Francisco, California during the 1860s, and he fathered three daughters, Penelope, Sophie, and Nadine. In 1878, he had his eldest daughter Penelope marry Mayor Samuel Blake, who in turn agreed to bring business to Mercer Steel, which was suffering due to the Long Depression. Mayor Blake offered Mercer a commission to build San Francisco's first cable cars, and Blake happily attended a meeting with US Senator Robert Crestwood, with whom he agreed that American labor was the only way to go, and that moving away from Chinese labor would save the working class. However, the duplicitous Mercer was pressured by Deputy Mayor Walter Buckley to employ Chinese labor to compete with another vendor who was also bidding for the cable car commission. This led union leader Dylan Leary to confront Mercer about his use of Chinese labor, and, when Mercer proved unable to take action, Leary returned with armed men and began attacking coolies. Mercer locked himself in his office as his men were brutally attacked, and he died of a heart attack while barricaded and fearful.