Samuel B. H. Vance


Samuel B. H. Vance as a Republican President of the New York City Board of Aldermen from 1873 to 1874, briefly became Acting Mayor of New York City between the death of the elected Mayor William Havemeyer on November 30, 1874, and the inauguration of his elected successor, William H. Wickham on January 1, 1875.

Early life

He was born in 1814 to a distinguished family in Pennsylvania.

Career

He served as a captain of volunteers in the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. In 1854, Vance began participating in a series of firms making gas and electric lighting fixtures in New York City, twice succeeding company presidents who had died. He was elected to the New York City Board of Education in 1860, and to the Board of Aldermen in 1871 and was then chosen to be the latter's president on January 7, 1873, leading in turn to his one-month tenure as acting mayor in December 1874.
In 1885, he was one of three commissioners appointed by the New York Supreme Court to study surface transportation on lower Broadway between Union Square West and The Battery. The commission recommended that, because of increased traffic and commercial density in this area, the Broadway Surface Railroad Company be granted a franchise to start and operate a horse drawn line along this route.

Personal life

Vance was married to Augusta Blanche Hall. They lived at a mansion on 30 West 57th Street. Together, they were the parents of:
After leaving a full day of work on Friday, August 8, 1890, Samuel Vance sought several days of rest at his home in Douglaston, Long Island, but died shortly after midnight on Sunday, August 10, 1890, at the age of 76. His widow died in Sayville, Long Island on Wednesday, June 19, 1901. They are buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Descendants

Through his daughter Fannie, he was the grandfather of Anita Blanche "Pansy" Roosevelt, who was "ill from nervous prostration in a sanitarium in New York" in 1903, Gladys Roosevelt, who married Fairman Rogers Dick, son of Evans Rogers Dick in 1913. Fairman's sister, Isabelle Mildred Dick was married to Stuyvesant Fish, Jr., and stood up in their wedding, Gladys was killed in a horse riding accident at the Meadow Brook Hunt Club in 1926. and Jean Schermerhorn Roosevelt, who married Philip James Roosevelt, a cousin and the son of Emlen Roosevelt, in 1925.