Imagine a politician who built his wealth in real estate, was a racist demagogue who supported the Confederacy, incited a riot, married and fathered multiple children with multiple women, tried to undermine democracy and the law to make himself a dictator, and used his executive public office to enrich himself ...
Of course I'm talking about the mid-19th Century NYC Mayor Fernando Wood.
Born in Philadelphia in 1812, Wood migrated to NYC and worked as a laborer, got involved in Tammany Hall politics, and was eventually elected to Congress in 1840. After one term he left and got into real estate, accumulating a fortune but remaining involved in politics until he finally was elected mayor in 1854.
His administration was basically a giant shakedown and bribery operation but he did notch some significant achievements: rebuilding the city harbor, overseeing the approval and eventual creation of Central Park, and implementing the grid system. He also attempted to change the city charter to essentially make the city government the extension of one man – him – so he could act as a dictator. When he ran for re-election in 1856, he furloughed the police department and got a band of thugs to menace and beat up voters in order to get reelected. He was never prosecuted for this.
Defeated for a third-term, Wood eventually got elected mayor again in 1860 – just as the Civil War was breaking out. He supported slavery and the Confederacy, and called for NYC to secede from New York State so it could keep trading with the south.
So did Fernando Wood ever face public disgrace or jail for his corruption and crimes?
Oh no. In 1862, he returned to Congress and opposed abolition. And he remained in Congress, becoming chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, until he died in 1881, a very wealthy man with a mansion on West 77th Street.
He also had three wives and fathered 16 children. The man was forever busy.
Today we live in an era of aspiring dictators and corrupt chief executives with a love of racism and violence and money. So while history has not been kind to Fernando Wood's memory, in some ways, he'd be right at home in our era.
But he's been condemned, at least, by popular culture: see the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln and listen to the 2011 Bowery Boys episode.
In many ways, Fernando Wood makes later NYC mayors Jimmy Walker and Eric Adams look like pillars of virtue.
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