Henry M. Hoyt
Henry Martyn Hoyt (1830-1892) was born on June 8th, 1820, in Kingston Pennsylvania. His ancestry in America can be traced to Simon Hoyt, who emigrated from England to reside in Salem, Massachusetts in 1628. The young Henry Hoyt grew up on his father’s farm until the age of fourteen, at which time he entered the Wyoming Seminary. He would then attend Williams College, where he would graduate in 1849. The following year, he would return to the Wyoming Seminary, this time serving as a Professor of Mathematics. Hoyt would remain there for two years, before deciding to pursue legal training. He would undertake this training in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and would be admitted into the bar in 1853. It was around this time that Hoyt started to become active in politics. In 1855, he ran an unsuccessful campaign on a Whig ticket for district attorney for Luzerne County. In the following year, he would be active in the unsuccessful Republican Presidential Campaign for John C. Fremont.
These political ambitions would be put on hold in 1861, however, with the outbreak of the Civil War. Hoyt would become Captain of the Wyoming Light Dragoons, and would serve in various operations during the war, eventually reaching the rank of Colonel. After being captured by Confederate forces, Colonel Hoyt would eventually be freed in a prisoner exchange and would be honorably discharged in 1864. After this, Hoyt would return to his law practice, and would continue his involvement in the Republican Party. In 1878, Hoyt would run for Governor of Pennsylvania on the Republican Ticket and would be elected by a large majority. He would serve in this capacity for four years, before retiring to his law practice, which he relocated to Philadelphia.
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It was in the 1880s that Hoyt would turn his attention to the cause of protection. In 1884, he would be asked to deliver an address at Swarthmore College entitled Protection and Defensive Duties. Then, in 1885, Hoyt and several other likeminded graduates would appeal to their alma mater, Williams College, on account that the college’s economics Professor, Arthur Latham Perry, taught exclusively French and Manchester laissez-faire economics, as evidenced by the college receiving the ‘Cobden Club Prize.’ In response, the college would approve a series of lectures on the merits of protection which would be conducted by Hoyt, so as to provide students with a more balanced education. It would be in 1886, however, that Hoyt would produce his major treatise on economics entitled Protection versus Free Trade. This work comprised 436 pages, and went through four editions, with the last being published in 1888. The expressed aim of the work is that of dismantling the claim that free trade economics represents a scientifically sound system. The work is intricate and contends systematically with the assumptions and arguments put forth by free traders. In addition to his literary and academic efforts, Hoyt would also assist the cause of protection in other capacities. In 1888, Hoyt would be elected as General Secretary of the American Protective Tariff League, and, in the same year, he would also assist Benjamin Harrison’s presidential campaign. After a life of serving his community, Henry Hoyt would die on December 1, 1892, in his home in South Franklin, Pennsylvania, at the age of fifty-seven.
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