Joel Hayden | |
Order: | 26th |
Office: | Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts |
Term Start: | 1863 |
Term End: | 1866 |
Governor: | John Albion Andrew |
Predecessor: | John Nesmith |
Successor: | William Claflin |
Birth Date: | 8 April 1798 |
Party: | Republican |
Joel Hayden (April 8, 1798 - November 10, 1873), was an American industrialist and politician who served as the 26th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1863 to 1866.
In 1857, Amherst College accepted a gift from Joel Hayden – a bronze neo-classical sculpture named after Sabrina, Goddess of the Britons.
Hayden owned several business and mills in Haydenville, Massachusetts, a borough of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, including a brass factory, gas works, cotton factory, and foundry. He was also a part-owner of the Williamsburg Reservoir Company, which built the shoddy Williamsburg Reservoir, completed in 1866. On May 16, 1874, several months after Hayden's death, the dam failed catastrophically, causing a flood that killed 139 people and destroyed all four of Hayden's factories.[1]