Excerpt from A Biography of Fernando Wood: A History of the Forgeries, Perjuries, and Other Crimes of Our Model Mayor

When a candidate in 1854, he sought interviews with many whom he had a right to suppose would Oppose him, as they knew much of his real character, and of the alleged frauds charged upon him.. He endeavored to persuade them that he had been unjustly accused; but when finding that he could make no impression on their minds in this direction, he then appealed to them for forgiveness, and solicited them to give him an opportunity to redeem his character through his election to the mayoralty. He stated, in some instances, that he sought this high position chiefly to remove, by his good conduct in official position, the deep prejudices that existed against him. This appeal induced some to support him, who otherwise would not have done so. When arrayed against a single Opponent, Wood was easily beaten, as was the case in 1850, when he was beaten by several thousand votes. But he saw in the mayoralty contest, in 1854, that there would be several candidates, and that if he could get the endorsement of the Democracy, or of the Seymour party, he could slip in by a plurality vote. He was right in his calcula tion.

But what effort did he make to redeem his character after he was elected? His policy at first was to be bold, and seemingly honest, Napoleonic In the style of his public documents. But no sooner had he begun to get the good opinion of some who had Opposed his election, than he found it convenient, and to his interest, to take a stroll in the neighborhood of the sunken ship Joseph Walker, lying at the slip, foot of Dover Street, in which entombed craft he imagined he saw a second John W. Cater. The first draft he made on the city treasury, on account of this sunken treasure, was a contract with his friend Jones to raise her, for the snug little sum of He succeeded in getting a greater part of this amount out of the treasury, when the press got hold Of the matter, and further drafts on this account were dishonored. But his friend Jones got some seven or eight thousand dollars on this fraudulent contract.

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