having acquired a handsome competence, he and Mr. Carnley made an extended tour of Europe, visiting the principal shipbuilding points, where he gathered information, subsequently made good use of. On returning to this country he again engaged in shipbuilding with Mr. Bergh, and three years after the death of Mr. Bergh, he assumed the business, with his sons, in his own interest. This firm was continued until 1868, and during his forty-seven years of shipbuilding he constructed 247 vessels of all descriptions.
In politics he was a Democrat. From 1840 toi 1842 he served as an Alderman from the Thirteenth Ward, in the Common Council of New York. In 1852, representatives of the Democratic party, knowing his executive ability and sterling integrity, nominated him for Mayor of the city. He was elected by a majority of 10,000 -- the largest ever received by a candidate up to that time -- against the most popular master mechanic in the Whig party, the late Alderman Morgan Morgans, carrying his own ward by nearly 1,000 majority, and only a few votes behind the electoral ticket for President Franklin Pierce.
His first message was a model of brevity, modesty and earnestness. Having served as Mayor during the years 1853-1854, he declined a renomination, which for him was equivalent to an election, and was succeeded by Fernando Wood.
In 1859 he surrendered the active management of the business to his son Daniel, but continued to supervise affairs at the shipyards, and in appreciation of the genius displayed in preparing models and plans for three Spanish frigates, the Queen of Spain conferred upon him the Order of Isabel la Catolica. He was the greatest shipbuilder of his day.
In 1870, at the request of Wilson G. Hunt and other commissioners of the Dock Department, then just established, he accepted the position of superintendent. Mayor William F. Havemeyer appointed him a commissioner in 1873; he was elected president of the Board the same year, which position he continued to fill until his death in 1879.
He was for many years the president of the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Marine Society, the Port Society and the St. Nicholas Society.
The Hon. Jacob Aaron Westervelt was of sturdy, enterprising, long-lived stock, and filled an important sphere of public usefulness. He was a plain, intelligent man, most liberal in his many benefactions and universally esteemed as an official and a citizen. A good Christian.
Children of Hon. Jacob Aaron Westervelt (412):
+800 John Albert, b. Sept. 15, 1826.
801 Daniel Demarest, b. Nov. 5, 1827. He m. Mary Jane
Ford, Sept. 5, 1855, and d. without issue, June 4, 1896.