William Lafayette Strong

William Lafayette Strong (March 22, 1827 – November 2, 1900)[1] was the Mayor of New York from 1895 to 1897. He was the last mayor of New York before the Consolidation of the City of New York on January 1, 1898.

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.

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.[2]

He is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lafayette_Strong