Garret Augustus Hobart (June 3, 1844 – November 21, 1899) was the 24th vice president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his death in 1899, under President William McKinley. A member of the Republican Party, Hobart was an influential New Jersey businessman and political operative prior to his vice presidency.
Hobart was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, on the Jersey Shore, and grew up in nearby Marlboro. He attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, and read law under Paterson-based attorney Socrates Tuttle. He both studied with Tuttle and married his daughter, Jennie. Although he rarely set foot in a courtroom, Hobart became wealthy as a corporate lawyer. Hobart served in local governmental positions, and then successfully ran for office as a Republican, serving in both the New Jersey General Assembly, where he was elected Speaker in 1874, and the New Jersey Senate, where he became its president in 1881.
He was a longtime state and national party official; during the 1896 Republican National Convention, New Jersey delegates to the convention were determined to nominate him for vice president. Hobart's political views were similar to those of William McKinley, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. With New Jersey a key state in the upcoming election, McKinley and his close advisor, future U.S. Senator Mark Hanna, backed Hobart, who was easily nominated on the first ballot. The vice presidential candidate emulated his running mate with a front porch campaign, and also spent considerable time at the campaign's New York City headquarters. On November 3, 1896, McKinley and Hobart were elected.
As vice president, Hobart proved a popular figure in Washington and was a close advisor to McKinley. Hobart's tact and humor were valuable to the President, as in mid-1899 when Secretary of War Russell Alger failed to understand that McKinley wanted him to leave office. Hobart invited Alger to his New Jersey summer home and broke the news to the secretary, who submitted his resignation to McKinley on his return to Washington. Hobart died of heart disease in 1899, aged 55, causing the office of the Vice President to be vacant for the remainder of McKinley's first term as, until the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967, there was no constitutional provision to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency. His place on the Republican ticket in 1900 was taken by Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded as president after McKinley's assassination in 1901.
Garret Augustus Hobart was born on June 3, 1844, in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Addison Willard Hobart and Sophia Hobart (née Vanderveer). Addison Hobart descended from the early colonial-era settlers of New England; many Hobarts served as pastors. Addison Hobart came to New Jersey, where he taught school in Bradevelt, a small hamlet in Marlboro Township, New Jersey. His mother was descended from 17th-century Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam in present-day New York City, who later moved to Long Island and then ultimately to New Jersey. When Addison and Sophia Hobart married in 1841, they moved to Long Branch, where Addison founded an elementary school. The couple had three children who survived infancy; Garret was the second of three boys.
Hobart initially attended his father's school in Long Branch. The family moved to Marlboro in the early 1850s, where he attended the village school. Childhood tales of the future vice president describe him as an excellent student in both day and Sunday school, and a leader in boyhood sports. Recognizing his abilities, his father sent him to a well-regarded school in Freehold. After a disagreement with the teacher, however, he refused to return. He then attended Middletown Point Academy, later known as the Glenwood Institute, a boarding school in Matawan, New Jersey. Hobart graduated at age 15. His parents felt he was too young to attend college, so he remained at home for a year, where he studied and worked part-time at the Bradevelt School, the same institution that employed his father.
In 1860, Hobart enrolled at Rutgers College. In 1863, he graduated third in his class. Throughout his adult life, Hobart was a generous donor to Rutgers, and was awarded an honorary degree after becoming vice president, and was elected a Rutgers trustee shortly before his death.
After graduating from Rutgers, Hobart worked briefly as a teacher to repay loans. Although Hobart was young and in good health, he did not serve in the Union Army. Addison Hobart's childhood friend, lawyer Socrates Tuttle, offered to take Hobart into his office to study law. Tuttle was a prominent Passaic County lawyer who had served in the New Jersey state legislature. Hobart supported himself by working as a bank clerk in Paterson; he later became director of the same bank. Hobart was admitted to the bar in 1866; he became a counsellor-at-law in 1871 and a master in chancery in 1872.
In addition to learning law from Tuttle, Hobart fell in love with his daughter, Jennie Tuttle Hobart, who later recalled, "When this attractive young law student appeared in our home I, then a young girl in my teens, unexpectedly played a rôle of importance by losing my heart to him". They were married on July 21, 1869. The Hobarts had long been Democrats; Garret Hobart's marriage into the Republican Tuttle family converted him. The Hobarts had four children, two of whom survived infancy. One daughter, Fannie, died in 1895; Hobart's son, Garret Jr. survived him.
Socrates Tuttle was influential in Paterson, which worked to Hobart's advantage. According to historian Michael J. Connolly, the future vice president "benefited greatly from Tuttle's beneficence". In 1866, the year he became a lawyer, Hobart was appointed grand jury clerk for Passaic County, New Jersey. When Tuttle became mayor of Paterson in 1871, he appointed Hobart as city counsel. A year later, Hobart became counsel for the county Board of Chosen Freeholders.
In 1872, Hobart ran as a Republican for the New Jersey General Assembly from Passaic County's third legislative district. He was easily elected, winning nearly two-thirds of the vote. At the time, members of the General Assembly were elected annually, and Hobart was successful in winning re-election the following year, although his margin of victory was cut in half.
In 1874, still only age 30, he was voted Speaker of the Assembly. In 1876, he was nominated for the New Jersey Senate seat for Passaic County. He was elected to a three-year term and he was re-elected in 1879. In 1881 and 1882, he served as President of the state Senate, becoming the first man to lead both houses of the legislature. In 1883, he was the Republican nominee in the election for United States Senate—until the passage of 17th amendment in 1913, senators were elected by state legislatures. As the Democrats were in the majority, the nomination was a way of honoring Hobart for his political service. When he was asked his feelings about the nomination, he responded, "I do not worry about things that do not come my way." The complimentary nomination would prove to be Hobart's only electoral defeat.
Hobart said of his involvement in public affairs, "I make politics my recreation." He devoted most of his time to a law practice which according to Hobart's legislative biography was highly profitable. He was rarely seen in a courtroom; his official biography for the 1896 campaign acknowledged that "he has actually appeared in court a smaller number of times than, perhaps, any lawyer in Passaic County". Hobart's real work was in advising corporations how to accomplish their aims, yet remain within the law. He also had a lucrative business acting as court-appointed receiver of bankrupt railroads, reorganizing them and restoring them to fiscal health. He often invested heavily in them; Hobart's success made him wealthy. In addition to the railroads for which he served as a receiver, he served as president of the Paterson Railway Company, which ran the city's streetcars, and as a board member for other railroads. According to historian Lewis L. Gould, Hobart sat on the boards of or held offices in sixty corporations.