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William Lafayette Strong

William Lafayette Strong (March 22, 1827 – November 2, 1900) was the 90th Mayor of New York City from 1895 to 1897. He was the last mayor of New York City before the Consolidation of the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898.Strong was born near Loudonville, Ohio in Richland County. He was the Son of Abel Strong born in 1792, a farmer born in Hartford Connecticut. Mother born in 1798 from Pennsylvania. Strong was the oldest of five children, with only a rural area education was forced to become a clerk at a dry goods store in Wooster Ohio after the death of his Father in 1840. Strong attended the Vermillion Institute in Hayesville, Ohio. In 1853, William Lafayette Strong moved to New York City where he worked at L.O. Wilson and Company dry goods firm. In the Panic of 1857 the business failed and Strong moved on to work for farnham, Dale, and Company. Then in 1866 Strong married Mary Aborn from New Jersey. They later had two children Putnam Bradlee and Mary. In 1870 the company emerged as William L Strong and Company. The Company was a very successful opening branches in many cities. In 1890 Strong became president of the First National Bank.Strong in 1880s was active in politics. He ran for Congress in 1882 but was unsuccessful. A Republican, elected on a Fusion Party ticket by Republican and anti-Tammany Democrats, the reform-minded Strong established the Board of Education, created small parks, and is credited as the "father" of the Department of Correction. The Department of Public Charities and Correction had been abolished by Governor Levi Morton in 1894 to become separate departments. Strong appointed former U.S. Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt as Police Commissioner.William Lafayette Strong Mayor of New York from 1895-1897 came in with the idea of change. Strong came in and cleaned up the New York. With help of legislation they passed the School Reform Law in 1896. In the 1800s legislators passes mandatory bath houses for the people of New York. William L Strong agreed with the necessary change due to sanitation issues due to overcrowding. The bath houses used for bathing and relaxing later became a recreational thing.He was born in Loudonville, Ohio; was a dry-goods salesman in Wooster and then in Manchester, Ohio; in 1853 went to New York City, where he engaged in similar business, and in 1869 became the head of the firm of William L. Strong & Co. Strong was president of the Central National Bank, president of the Homer Lee Bank Note Company, Vice President of the New York Security and Trust Company, Director for the Erie Railroad, and the Plaza Bank.William Lafayette Strong died in his home on November 2, 1900. Strong, complaining of not feeling well the night before, retired to his room early. By the next morning he had worsened very fast. He died early that morning leaving behind a wife and two children.He is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.He is an ancestor of Matthew A. Morgan, an Upstate New York Politician.