Ferdinand A. Hoyt

BEACON. — Former Judge Ferdinand A. Hoyt, well-known lawyer and Democratic leader, died at his home in Beacon on Friday, Dec. 8, 1944.

Born in Brewster, Putnam county, 64 years ago, he came to Beacon as a boy and attended the local schools. He was admitted to the bar after graduation from New York Law school. He then took a position as managing clerk in the office of a commissioner of bankruptcy in New York.

In 1910 when he became the Democratic nominee for the Assembly, Franklin D. Roosevelt was making his first try in politics, running for State Senate. There had been no Democrat elected from Dutchess in the previous thirty years. They campaigned together and were elected.

Mr. Hoyt joined Mr. Roosevelt in the successful protest against William F. Sheehan for United States Senator. The next year, despite Tammany Hall influence against him because of the Sheehan protest, he was defeated by fewer than 300 votes.

In 1913, when Beacon become a city, Mr. Hoyt was elected city judge. Two years later he entered the Navy Air corps as an ensign at Pensacola, Fla. After the war he was re-elected judge on an independent ticket. In the early Nineteen Twenties he purchased The Beacon Journal, which had been published by his brother for a quarter of a century. In 1928 he sold the paper to the Frank Gannett group. Soon afterward he was appointed by Governor Roosevelt a compensation court referee, a post he held until 1943 when he retired.

In 1942 he was unsuccessful Democrat-American Labor party candidate against Hamilton Fish for Congress, losing by 3,000 votes. Mr. Hoyt also served as Beacon Democratic chairman for several years.

Surviving are a son, Ensign Austin Hoyt, stationed in Washington; two grandchildren; and a brother, Morgan H. Hoyt. of Albany.

The funeral was held on Sunday afternoon and the interment was made in the family plot in Milltown cemetery at Brewster.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1944
THE PUTNAM COUNTY REPUBLICAN