Joel Erhardt  Joel Benedict Erhardt (February 21, 1838 – September 8, 1909) was an American politician, civil servant, lawyer and businessman. He served as the police commissioner for the New York Police Department, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of New York, the Collector of the Port of New York and was the Republican candidate who ran against Hugh J. Grant for the Mayor of New York in 1888. Joel Benedict Erhardt was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and moved with his parents, John Erhardt and Louisa Benedict, to New York City at the age of three. He came from a poor background, it being necessary for him to work in order to pay for the costs of public schooling, and was employed as messenger and clerk. Erhardt continued to work his way through college, becoming a schoolteacher in Upper Jay, New York, attending the University of Vermont. He continued his studies up until the start of the American Civil War whereupon he volunteered to enlist in the Union Army. He initially joined the Ninth Militia Regiment, but reportedly anxious for active duty, he left the unit for the Second and then Seventy-First Regiments until finally leaving for the front lines with the Seventh Regiment. He had to borrow the money to pay for his uniform. After his enlistment period was up, he returned to his home state to raise the First Vermont Cavalry serving with them until 1863. He had reached the rank of Captain by that time and, that summer, he was appointed a provost marshal and assigned to New York City where he would oversee enforcing conscription in the Tenth District. Although criticized for the low number of recruits compared to the other provost marshals in the city, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton defended Erhardt's efforts stating "The men he enlists may be few but they go to the front and fight, every one of them. They are not bounty jumpers". In the days before the New York Draft Riots, he was confronted by several men with iron bars while trying to collect names in a new tenement building at Broadway and Liberty Street. Erhardt held the men off for three hours while waiting for reinforcements, armed only with his pistol, but was eventually forced to retreat without the names. After the war, Erhardt became a lawyer and remained in New York serving as Assistant U.S. District Attorney in Brooklyn. In 1876, Erhardt was named as police commissioner of the New York Police Department by Governor Samuel J. Tilden after the dismissal of George Washington Matsell and Abram Disbecker by Mayor William H. Wickham.