George Opdyke

George Opdyke (December 7, 1805 – June 12, 1880) was an entrepreneur and the 76th mayor of New York City serving from 1862 to 1864 during the American Civil War.

[3] During the 1820s, after his two-year stint as a teacher in New Jersey, Opdyke began his business career by traveling West to Cleveland, Ohio, where he opened a successful clothing store.

As mayor, Opdyke recruited and equipped troops for the war and responded to draft riots of July 1863.

His term in office ended in 1863, and he was succeeded by Democrat Charles Godfrey Gunther, who had also been Opdyke's opponent in 1861.

[3] Through his daughter Mary, he was a grandfather of Lilian Gray Farlee (1859–1894), who married Dr. Charles Loomis Dana, a physician, professor of nervous and mental disease at Cornell Medical College, in 1882.

Opdyke's tomb