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Richard Melancthon Hurd (June 14, 1865 – June 6, 1941) was a pioneer real estate economist and political activist.

Hurd was born in New York City and attended St. Paul's School. He graduated from Yale University in 1888, where he was a member of Skull and Bones and an editor of The Yale Record. Particularly in his youth he was an avid hiker and mountain climber and visited Europe during summer with his father to enjoy the activity. In 1889, Hurd was the referee of the very first University of Washington football game in Seattle.

He headed the mortgage department of the U.S. Mortgage & Trust Company in 1895. He married Lucy Gazzam of Seattle, Washington, in Mobile, Alabama, in 1898 and had five children. He was president of the Lawyers' Mortgage Insurance Company in 1903 when he published Principles of City Land Values.

During the First World War he was active as an officer of the American Defense Society, an organization that promoted America's entry into World War I and civilian initiatives to suppress dissent during the conflict. He was a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1917, when he was vice-president and director of the Mortgage Bond Company of New York, he was appointed a New York State Prison Commissioner. He was later President of Lawyers Mortgage Trust, a securitizer of urban commercial property mortgages. The company suffered financial losses and closed during the Great Depression.

His son Clement Hurd was an illustrator, known for the children's book Goodnight Moon.

He died at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. He had been ill for more than a month.

Notes

1. ^ New York Times: "Richard M. Hurd, 75, Finance Firm Head," June 7, 1941, accessed May 26, 2010
2. Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata: The Majority and Other Writings (NY: Norton, 1962), 257
3. ^ James Malcolm, ed., The New York Red Book (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company, 1917), 103 View, accessed May 26, 2010
4. "OBITUARY RECORD OF GRADUATES OF YALE UNIVERSITY DECEASED DURING THE YEAR 1940-1941" (PDF). Yale University. January 1, 1942. Retrieved March 26, 2011.
5. "Richard Melancthon Hurd". The tenth general catalogue of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity. Bethlehem, Pa.: The Comenius Press. March, 1888. p. 297.
6. American Alpine Club: Memorial to Richard M Hurd 1865-1941
7. "The Football Game — A Lively Contest Over the Leather Egg Yesterday — Old Players vs. Universitys". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Vol. XVI, no. 19. November 29, 1889. p. 5. Retrieved December 1, 2024. E. B. Downing acted as umpire and Mr. R. M. Hurd as referee.
8. Hurd, City Land Values, preface p. v
9. Richard Melancthon Hurd, Principles of City Land Values (N.Y.: Real Estate Record Association, 1903), archive.org: View, accessed May 24, 2010

Sources

• The New York Times: "German Boycott Efforts", November 18, 1918, accessed May 24, 2010
• The New York Times: "Attacks German Insurance", November 12, 1917, accessed May 24, 2010
• The New York Times: "Wants No Credit Given to Germany", November 22, 1918, accessed May 24, 2010

External links

• Richard M. Hurd, "Principles of City Land Values" (1903)
• John W. Leonard, ed., Who's Who in New York City and State (NY: L.R. Hamersly & Company, 1909), vol. 4, 716, View
• Richard Melancthon Hurd (1888). A History of Yale Athletics, 1840-1888: Giving Every Contest with Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Wesleyan, and Others in Rowing, Foot Ball, Base Ball, Track Athletics, Tennis. R.M. Hurd.

• 1865 births
• 1941 deaths
• Writers from Brooklyn
• Economists from Brooklyn
• St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) alumni
• American male non-fiction writers
• The Yale Record alumni
• Activists from New York City
• Members of Skull and Bones