65 Facts About Fernando Wood

Fernando Wood represented the city for several terms in the United States House of Representatives.

Fernando Wood was elected mayor for the first time in 1854 and served three non-consecutive terms.

Fernando Wood returned to the mayor's office for a final term in 1860.

Fernando Wood once suggested to the New York City Council that the city should declare itself an independent city-state in order to continue its profitable cotton trade with the Confederate States of America.

Fernando Wood was born in Philadelphia on February 14,1812.

Fernando Wood's father, Benjamin Wood, was a speculator in dry goods who was bankrupted by the Panic of 1819.

Fernando Wood's brother, named Benjamin Wood after their father, served in the US Congress.

The business failed by 1829 and Benjamin Fernando Wood left his family to die, impoverished and alone in Charleston.

In New York, Fernando Wood enrolled in a private academy run by James Shea of Columbia College.

Fernando Wood left school in 1825 at age 13, as his father's business declined, in order to provide for his family.

In 1832, Fernando Wood returned to New York City to head his mother's household at 140 Greene Street.

Fernando Wood struggled in business, often working nights at his wife's wine and tobacconist store on Pearl Street.

In 1835, Fernando Wood started a ship chandler firm with Francis Secor and Joseph Scoville, but the business failed during the Panic of 1837.

Fernando Wood soon opened a bar using his wife's dowry, which he was forced to close because business was so poor.

In later years, after parting ways politically, Scoville accused Fernando Wood of overcharging drunken bar patrons.

Fernando Wood joined the nascent Jacksonian Democratic Party, possibly influenced by his hatred of the Second Bank of the United States, which he blamed for his father's ruin.

However, following the Panic of 1837 and a Locofoco food riot, Fernando Wood worked to advance radical anti-bank politics within the Young Men's Committee.

Fernando Wood's move was politically prescient; in September 1837, President Martin Van Buren, a Tammany Hall ally, signaled approval of Locofocoism.

In October 1840, Fernando Wood's rise culminated with a nomination for the United States House of Representatives at just 28 years old.

Fernando Wood campaigned on Anglophobic themes to appeal to Irish voters in the city, suggesting that "British stockjobbers" funded the Whig campaign in gold.

Fernando Wood engaged in a war of words with New York American editor Charles King, who revealed that Wood had been found liable for $2,143.90 in overdraft fees after he fraudulently withdrew from his bank on the basis of a bookkeeping error.

In Congress, Fernando Wood served on the Public Buildings and Grounds Committee.

Fernando Wood sought out the mentorship of Henry Clay, who had become estranged from the Whigs over his break with President John Tyler, and Southern Democrats like John C Calhoun, Henry A Wise, and James K Polk.

On economic issues, Fernando Wood was an orthodox Democrat, favoring hard money, deflation, and free trade.

Fernando Wood was a vocal opponent of protectionist tariffs proposed by House Ways and Means chairman Millard Fillmore.

Fernando Wood lobbied the US State Department for protections for Irish political prisoners, some of whom were naturalized Americans, whom the British forcibly resettled on Tasmania.

Fernando Wood expected to run for re-election in 1842, but the New York City district was split into four separate districts by a congressional mandate.

Fernando Wood lived in the new fifth district, home to popular incumbent John McKeon.

McKeon won, and Fernando Wood covertly undermined him in the general election, invoking McKeon's Irish heritage and suggesting McKeon was a secret abolitionist.

Fernando Wood used his political connections to Polk to save his patronage job under new Secretary of State James Buchanan.

Fernando Wood massively expanded his wealth by entering the real estate market, at first by accident.

Fernando Wood himself reported personal holdings of $1,200,000 at the 1860 census.

Fernando Wood presented his brother-in-law with a fraudulent letter, purportedly from a "Thomas O'Larkin" in Monterey, California, suggesting the venture.

In 1851, Fernando Wood was indicted by a grand jury, but the judges quashed the charges because the statute of limitations expired a day before the court was to rule on the matter.

Fernando Wood was accused, without substantiation, of bribing the Whig district attorney with $700 to delay the charges until the statute of limitations expired.

In 1855, the New York Supreme Court ordered Fernando Wood to pay Marvine $8,000 and the other partners $5,635.40.

Fernando Wood filed an appeal that dragged on for another six years.

Fernando Wood was nominated for Mayor of New York City for the first time in 1850 with the support of "Soft Shell Democrats" who supported the 1849 state Democratic platform, which called for protection of slavery where it existed but recognized Congress's right to prevent its extension to new American territories.

Fernando Wood was defeated by Ambrose C Kingsland in a landslide for the Whig Party.

Fernando Wood began organizing his political return in November 1853, courting both the Soft and Hard factions in opposition to Free Soil Democrats, who opposed any extension of slavery whatsoever.

Fernando Wood sought influence in the secretive new Know-Nothing nativist movement, despite his base of support in the city's immigrant communities.

Fernando Wood embarked on several large spending programs, including modernizing the city's wharfs by replacing wooden structures with stone, new safety features for the city's railways, construction of the already-planned Central Park, and expansion of the city's grid plan.

Fernando Wood was an early supporter of James Buchanan for the 1856 Democratic nomination and attempted to parlay this support into a nomination on Buchanan's ticket for Governor of New York.

However, an expected endorsement by Buchanan never materialized and Fernando Wood was seen as too extreme by state leaders.

On election day, Fernando Wood furloughed or relieved many police officers of duty, allowing his own gang, the Dead Rabbits, to menace voters and steal ballot boxes.

The economic devastation of the Panic of 1857 dominated the campaign, and Fernando Wood pursued public works programs to provide jobs and food for the city's poor citizens.

Fernando Wood was denied a third successive term by a narrow margin of 3,000 votes.

Fernando Wood was one of many New York Democrats sympathetic to the Confederacy, called 'Copperheads' by the staunch Unionists.

Fernando Wood's suggestion was greeted with derision by the Common Council.

Subsequent to serving his third mayoral term, Fernando Wood served again in the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1865, then again from 1867 until his death in Hot Springs, Arkansas on February 13,1881.

Fernando Wood was one of the main opponents of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery and was critical in blocking the measure in the House when it first came up for a vote in June 1864.

Fernando Wood attacked anti-slavery War Democrats as having "a white man's face on the body of a negro," and supported state-level Democratic Party platforms that advocated constitutional amendments protecting slavery.

Fernando Wood argued that the amendment "strikes at property," and took the power of regulating slavery away from the states, where it rightfully belonged.

On January 15,1868, Fernando Wood was censured for the use of unparliamentary language.

Notwithstanding his censure, Fernando Wood still managed to defeat Dr Francis Thomas, the Republican candidate, by a narrow margin in the election of that year.

Fernando Wood served as chairman for the Committee on Ways and Means in both the 45th and 46th Congress.

Fernando Wood was slightly over six feet, making him tall for his time.

Wood's brother Benjamin Wood purchased the New York Daily News, supported Stephen A Douglas, and was elected to Congress, where he made a name as an opponent of pursuing the American Civil War.

Fernando Wood was married three times and had 16 children, seven from his second marriage to Anna Richardson and nine from his third marriage to Alice Mills.

Fernando Wood never spoke of her again, but a political enemy later claimed she had become an alcoholic prostitute.

Fernando Wood later moved his family to West Jersey, where he established a homestead along the Delaware River.

Fernando Wood's grandfather Henry Wood was born in 1758 and served in the American Revolution as a captain.

Fernando Wood was wounded at the battles of Germantown and Yorktown.

Fernando Wood died in Hot Springs, Arkansas on February 13,1881, one day before his 69th birthday.

In Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Fernando Wood is portrayed by Lee Pace as a leading opponent of the president and of the Thirteenth Amendment.