
William Frederick Havemeyer (12 February 1804-30 November 1874) was the Democratic Mayor of New York City from 1845 to 1846 (succeeding James Harper and preceding Andrew H. Mickle), from 1848 to 1849 (succeeding William V. Brady and preceding Caleb Smith Woodhull), and from 1873 to 1874 (succeeding A. Oakey Hall and preceding Samuel B.H. Vance).
Biography[]
William Frederick Havemeyer was born in New York City, New York in 1804, the son of a German immigrant sugar refiner. He became wealthy through managing his family business, and he served as a Democratic presidential elector in 1844 and as Mayor of New York City from 1845 to 1846 and from 1848 to 1849 before engaging in banking. He organized the New York Police Department in 1845, and he established station houses across the city. Havemeyer failed in his 1859 Tammany Hall-backed bid for mayor, losing to "Mozart Hall" Democrat Fernando Wood, and he staunchly supported the Union and abolitionism during the American Civil War, unlike the secessionist Wood. After the war, he broke with Tammany Hall and became a prominent reformer, and the Republican Party nominated him as their mayoral candidate in 1872. Havemeyer won on the GOP ticket, serving from 1873 until dying of a heart attack at his office in 1874.