Joseph A. Bogardus

Joseph A. Bogardus, son of James H. and Elizabeth Bogardus, was born at Kingston, Ulster County, N. Y., Sept. 27, 1851. Owing to the death of his parents when he was very young, his early life was spent at the home of his grandparents at Tarrytown, and Chappaqua, N. Y. In the fall of 1868, when he was seventeen years of age, he came to the city of New York and entered the hardware store of Paul C. Coffin, where he, remained until the spring of 1877, when, in conjunction with Isaac Pierce, he purchased a portion of his employer's business, and formed a copartnership under the name of Bogardus & Pierce. The firm was subsequently changed to Bogardus & Eleby, and later to Bogardus, Ellaby & Ellsworth. In the spring of 1892 he purchased his partners' interest in the business, and since that time has been conducting it alone.  
     Mr. Bogardus' first active identification with temperance work was in 1866, when he joined the Pleasantville Division of the Sons of Temperance, located at Pleasantville, N. Y. Soon afterward, in conjunction with Edward Judson (" Ned Buntline ") and others, he organized Laurel Glen Division, at Chappaqua, and also assisted in organizing several other divisions in Westchester county. He has also been identified with the Independent Order of Good Templars, filling several important positions in that organization, for two years being a member of the board of managers of the State Grand Lodge. For more than fifteen years he has been President of the American Temperance Union, and in this connection has been brought in close contact with the leading temperance workers of the country, many of whom he has had the honor of first introducing to a New York audience. He has taken a very active part in the temperance work of the Society of Friends, and is at present at the head of the temperance department in an organization which embraces the entire membership of that society in this country.  
     Mr. Bogardus cast his first vote in the fall of 1872, and his deep conviction that the liquor traffic should be absolutely prohibited led him to support the first Presidential nominees of the Prohibition Party. Since that time he has consistently voted for every nominee of that party, National, State, and local. He had been actively at work for many years in helping to build up the party in the city and county of New York, filling many positions of trust and honor in the party. He was at one time Chairman of the New York State Committee. He has been especially active in platform work.  
     In 1892 he was the nominee for mayor of New York City, and one year later headed the New York State ticket as candidate for Secretary of State. 

-- An Album of Representative Prohibitionists (1895)

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