Abram Hewitt - Career

Career

In 1845, financed by Peter Cooper, Hewitt and Edward Cooper started an iron mill in Trenton, New Jersey, the Trenton Iron Company, where, in 1854, they produced the first structural wrought iron beams, as well as developing other innovative products. Hewitt also invested in other companies, in many case serving on their boards. Hewitt was known for dedicated work for the U.S. government and exceptionally good relations with his employees.

After his marriage to Sarah Cooper, Hewitt supervised the construction of Cooper Union, Peter Cooper's free educational institution, and chaired the board of trustees until 1903.

In 1871, inspired by reformer Samuel J. Tilden, Cooper was prominent in the campaign to bring about the fall of the corrupt Tammany Hall-based "Tweed Ring", led by the William M. Tweed, and helped reorganize the Democratic Party in New York, which Tweed and Tammany had controlled. He first ventured into elective politics in 1874, when he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for five terms. He also became the head of the Democratic National Committee in 1876, when Tilden ran for President.

Hewitt's most famous speech was made at the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge between Manhattan Island and Brooklyn in 1883.

In 1886, Hewitt was elected mayor of New York City when Richard Croker of Tammany Hall – which had resumed its control of the Democratic Party in the city – arranged for Hewitt to get the Democratic nomination, despite his being the leader of the anti-Tammany "Swallowtails" of the party: Croker needed a strong candidate to oppose the United Labor Party candidate, political economist Henry George. Tammany feared that a win by George might reorganize politics in the city along class lines, rather than along ethnic lines, which is where Tammany drew its power. Theodore Roosevelt, running as the Republican Party candidate, came in third. Hewitt was not successful as a mayor, due both to his unpleasant character and nativist beliefs: he refused, for instance, to review the St. Patrick's Day Parade, a decision which alienated most of the Democratic power base. Hewitt also refused to allow Tammany the control of patronage they wanted, and Croker saw to it that Hewittt was not nominated for a second term.

Hewitt was considered a consistent defender of sound money practices – he is famously quoted as saying "Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation." – and civil service reform. He was conspicuous for his public spirit, and developed an innovative funding and construction plan for the New York City subway system, for which he is known as the "Father of the New York City Subway System".

Hewitt had many investments in natural resources, including considerable holdings in West Virginia, where William Nelson Page (1854–1932) was one of his managers. He was also an associate of Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840–1909), a financier and industrialist who was a key man in the Standard Oil Trust, and a major developer of natural resources. One of Hewitt's investments handled by Rogers and Page was the Loup Creek Estate in Fayette County, West Virginia. The Deepwater Railway was a subsidiary initially formed by the Loup Creek investors to ship bituminous coal from coal mines on their land a short distance to the main line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) along the Kanawha River. After rate disputes, the tiny short line railroad was eventually expanded to extend all the way into Virginia and across that state to a new coal pier at Sewell's Point on Hampton Roads. Planned secretly right under the noses of the large railroads, it was renamed the Virginian Railway, and was also known as the "richest little railroad in the world" for much of the 20th century.