The recent death of Fernando Wood, like his life and everythin’ about him, has made quite an excitement, and has brought to my mind some points and facts and stories about him, which I might as well put together in this chapter.
When Fernando would was first made Mayor, the boys thought they could “run” him because they had elected him, and expected to do what they pleased with him. But Wood soon showed ‘em their mistake. He put on airs from the start. The first thing he did was to have a room all to himself, back of the central office where the Mayors of New York used to sit. This room he took all to himself, and never allowed anybody to enter it unless specially invited, and had it guarded by a special officer. The boys didn’t like this exclusive sort of a thing a bit. Then Mayor Wood ordered the old Mayor’s room to be all fixed over in gorgeous style, had the ceilin’s all painted, and the floor newly carpeted, and the pictures all hung over, and all new furniture. One mornin’ a gang of Fourth Warders, headed by Tom Dennis, who had worked hard for Wood’s election, called to see the Mayor; and Tom Dennis, hearin’ the Mayor was in and in his private office, walked in to have a chat with “Fernandy.” That is, he would have stepped in, hadn’t the Mayor’s private officer at the door told him he couldn’t enter–that the Mayor was engaged and couldn’t see him.
“Can’t see me!” cried Tom Dennis. “It was not so very long ago since Fernandy Wood was d—-d anxious to see me. I guess he hain’t got so mighty pressin’ an engagement that he can’t see me and the boys. Just tell him, sonny, that the men who made the Mayor want to see the Mayor, will yer?”
“I wouldn’t dare carry such a message to his Honor for the whole city of New York,” replied the attendant, who knew Tom Dennis well enough. Then sinkin’ his voice to a whisper, the attendant said to Dennis with a wink: “I guess it tain’t Fernand-y Wood any more, Tom, but Fernand-o, and a very big O at that.” And the attendant was right. It was the Hon. FernandO Wood all the time after that.
Wood soon made an end of the City Hall gang of bummers after his election. He ordered the buildin’ to be kept clear of everybody exceptin’ those havin’ business there, and he introduced a lot of red tape.
One mornin’ an officer appeared before the Mayor without his official uniform. The Mayor reprimanded him, although six weeks before this, Wood had been hobnobbin’ round the Sixth Ward with this very officer. A little while afterwards this officer appeared again before the Mayor without his uniform, and was at once discharged.
The boys swore till the air was blue, but the Mayor didn’t care for their swearin’. It was only their voting he wanted, and he had got their votes already.
About this time he worked the church racket a while, and got on the right side of old Dr. Tyng, who was the leadin’ Episcopal and fashionable minister of those days. Wood took a pew at St. George’s Church, and sat in it every Sunday. He professed to be a great believer in Sunday, and to be determined to enforce the Sunday laws, and he got Dr. Tyng to believe in him completely.
One day somebody asked Dr. Tyng if Wood was really in earnest in his reforms. “Earnest!” said Dr. Tyng, gettin’ excited: “he is as Ernest as I am. I know the Mayor. I would almost as soon doubt my God as doubt him.” A year afterwards Tyng and all the other clergymen were denouncin’ Wood terribly.
Dr. Tyng was a great temperance man, and for a while Fernando worked the temperance racket, too, and the Hutchinsons once sang a temperance song that was announced as havin’ been written by the Hon. Fernando Wood. In fact, Fernando Wood in his time worked all sorts of rackets, just as they suited him. When he was livin’ with his first wife, in White street, he worked the Abolition racket–was a member of the Tabernacle and one of the archdeacons, I think. He wanted to get the influence of the Journal of Commerce to help him get to Congress.
Wood made some terribly bitter enemies among the business men of New York when he started. Lorenzo B. Shepperd hated Wood awfully, and fought him a square fight. William D. Kennedy was another bitter enemy of Wood, perhaps the bitterest Wood ever had. But Wood was smart. He never lost his temper with Kennedy, and when Kennedy died he went to his funeral. C. B. Secor was one of Wood’s early friends, but his great start in New York socially came from his marryin’ the daughter of the rich merchant Drake Mills.
This Drake Mills was one of the firm of Smith & Mills, big grocers. Mills was father to the Mills after whom the famous Mills House, the crack Hotel of Charleston, S. C., is called. Mrs. Wood, nee Mills, could speak and write and read in five different languages. This would have made her a mighty dangerous woma, if she had chosen to be; but she had good good sense as well as learnin’, and Mr. Wood, whose first marriage was very unhappy, and who separated from his first wife, was very lucky in his second marriage.
Drake Mills was one of the directors of the old Phoenix Bank, and was a big bug generally. Wood tried to have him nominated for City Chamberlain, but Alderman Peck, who was then actin’ Mayor, wouldn’t have it.
Once wood found $1,500 (as he said) wrongfully placed to his credit at the Merchants’ Exchange Bank. He went and drew out this money, and there was quite a time made over it. But Wood acted accordin’ to his legal rights, and was sustained by William B. Astor and other rich men, and got to Congress that very year. Henry P. Gardner, who afterwards became quite a prominent man, was then in Wood’s employ. At one time would was one of the most popular men in the city of New York. Whenever his name was mentioned in any “gags” at the theatre, there would always be three cheers given.
On the Hudson River Railroad, a pickpocket tried his little game, and a passenger prevented him from playin’ it through, and arrested him. The pickpocket fought like a devil, drew a knife, than a pistol; but the passenger broke the knife, and, snatchin’ the pistol from the thief, pointed it at him and kept him quiet till he handed him in New York to an officer. The passenger was tall, slender, dignified-lookin’–resembled Fernando Wood a good deal, and so it got rumored around that Fernando Wood had fought and conquered a robber, single-handed. A great time was made over this achievement, and although Fernando never claimed to be the man, he never denied bein’ him. So he got the benefit.
People said Fernando Wood had no “personal magnetism,” as they call it. People that said this never had seen Fernando Wood payin’ his visits, before election, to the “dear people” in the down-town wards.
I remember goin’ once into a saloon in Roosevelt street, and there sat a tall, slender gentleman, fixed up in style, with his frock coat buttoned up to his chin, kid gloves on his hands and switchin’ a light cane. He was drinkin’ with some of the roughest specimens of humanity I ever came across, but he was hobnobbin’ with ‘em just for all the world as if he was one of ‘em, listenin’ to their stories, and tellin’ a pretty good story himself. And all those men around him, roughs as they were, would have died for him, and not one of ‘em made any remarks or took any offense at the way he was dressed up. Any other man fixed up that way would have laughed at, or cursed at, but in “Fernandy” it was all right.
Then he went out with two of the men, and paid a call at a tenement house hardby, where he kissed the little children as if they were his own, and talked to the women as if he had known them all his life. He didn’t do it, either, as if he had to do it, but as if he wanted to do it, and liked to do it. Then he left some money for ‘em to drink his health with; and if he had had a chance to be President of the United States, every man in the ward would have worked a week for him for nothin’.
One day an old woman named Mrs. O’Rourke, in Oak street, died, and her husband met Fernando in the street and told him of his wife’s death. Wood merely asked what time the funeral would take place and passed on. But on the day of the funeral he sent his coachman and his carriage to convey Mr. O’Rourke and the family mourners to the cemetery.
That carriage was worth to Fernando Wood thousands of votes, and as long as he lived, no matter what he did or didn’t, or what was said or written against him, Fernando Wood had the Irishmen of New York with him, almost to a man.
[Editor’s notes: Wood (1812-1881) served one term in Congress, from 1840-1842. He won two two-year terms as Mayor of New York, from 1854-1858. As suggested in the column above, he courted differing factions for support. He was the first Mayor elected by the Tammany Hall political machine. His second term was marred by the Police Riot of June 1857 and the Dead Rabbits riot a few weeks later. Though he once showed support for Abolitionists, he later more frequently aligned himself with pro-slavery positions and politicians.]
