Since Oakland was incorporated as a city, fifty people have served as its mayor.

Many of these public servants are celebrated for creating policies that helped the city and its residents. Others, like Horace Carpentier, have long been remembered as, well, crooks.

We'll give Carpentier a chance to defend himself, but first — the historical record.

Horace Carpentier, Oakland's first mayor. | Photo: Oakland Planning History

After completing his studies at Columbia University, Carpentier sailed from New York to California in 1850. When he arrived in Oakland two years later, the town was known as "Contra Costa," and had a population of just 70, according to Waterfront Action. At the time, Carpentier was a lawyer based in San Francisco.

According to a 1932 history commissioned by the City Council to celebrate Oakland's 80th anniversary, Carpentier acquired large swaths of Oakland from the Peraltas, owners of a 44,800-acre land grant acquired from California's last Spanish governor.

By 1852, Carpentier used his social and political connections to get himself appointed Enrolling Clerk in the state legislature, where he prepared and handled copies of all new legislation. In May of that year, he put a bill before the legislature to incorporate the town of Contra Costa.

Usually, an incorporation request comes with a petition by local residents, but none was presented in this case. In his request, which was approved on May 4, Carpentier asked the legislature to change the area's name to "Oakland."

Two weeks later, the new township's trustees gave Carpentier the right to develop Oakland's waterfront in exchange for five dollars and 2 percent of the profits, plus three new wharves and a schoolhouse. Along with the rights to the waterways, he also operated a ferry to San Francisco and built a toll bridge across what is known today as Lake Merritt.

Under the terms of the deal, Carpentier was to retain these rights for 37 years.

Long wharf used by Central Pacific Railroad, 1860s. | Photo: CPRR.org

In 1854, Oakland reincorporated as a city and elected Carpentier as its first (and at age 29, its youngest) mayor. Once people found out that Carpentier was the sole businessman profiting off of the waterways, however, they pushed him out of office the following year.

The dispute over who profited from managing the waterfront — Oakland's early economic engine — dragged on for years. By 1868, Carpentier agreed to transfer his rights to a new entity, the Oakland Waterfront Company. (Later, word leaked that Carpentier had made himself president of the Oakland Waterfront Company.)

No longer mayor, Carpentier continued to be a power player in Oakland's development; he promoted transcontinental telegraph and railroad service, which helped establish the city as the western terminus of the first cross-country railroad.

Thanks to his holdings, Carpentier provided venture capital that helped fund UC Berkeley and left the university $200,000 in his will. By the 1880s, Carpentier moved back to New York, where he lived until his death in 1918.

Getting To Know Horace Carpentier. | Video: Hoodline

Hoodline met with local historian Dennis Evanosky to learn more about Carpentier's legacy. A writer and a journalist, Evanosky has studied the first mayor and has portrayed him in plays and other performances.

Evanosky believes history has given Carpentier a bad rap, so we've given him a chance to defend the man's honor. Take a look at the video above, and let us know what you think in the comments.