New York City Mayor. He served as Mayor of New York City, New York from 1821 to 1824. Born in New York City, his father died when he was two years old, and he lived under the British occupation of Manhattan Island while a boy during the Revolutionary War, working as a sail maker's apprentice. After the Revolution he struggled first to make a living in his trade, but eventually made his fortune during the War of 1812, when he took promissory notes from the United States government for canvas "duck" cloth, which was needed for sails for American war ships, when other bigger suppliers had refused to accept them. He would go on to invest in real estate and became a bank president. Elected Mayor of New York City in 1820, he was the first to hold the office after a change in the New York State Constitution allowed for the mayor to be appointed by a council of aldermen that had been elected by the populace. As Mayor he advocated for a separate system of justice for juvenile offenders, and worked on the Croton water project to bring clean water to New York City, after seeing the devastation of diseases caused by unsafe drinking water. He was known as a blunt spoken man of great integrity. After serving three years as New York City Mayor he would be elected as a senator to the New York State Senate, where oversaw the founding of Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. A stalwart member of the Tammany Hall political machine, he remained connected to politics through the rest of his life. He was killed on July 28, 1852 when the pleasure paddle wheel steamship he was on, the “SS Henry Clay” burned near Riverdale, in The Bronx after the steam engines caught fire, allegedly because the vessel was racing another steamship. The ensuing disaster killed dozens, and was eventually the impetus for the 1852 Steamboat Act, that directed stricter steamboat regulations and inspections, and for licensing engineers and pilots.