William Madison Wood

William Madison Wood (June 18, 1858 – February 2, 1926) was an American textile mill owner of Lawrence, Massachusetts. He made a good deal of his fortune through being hired by mill owners to turn around failing mills and was despised by organized labor.

Early life and education Wood was born in 1858 in a cottage on Pease Point Way, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard. His parents, Grace (Emma) Wood and William Wood Sr., were Portuguese immigrants from the Azores, Portugal. His father, William Sr., Guilherme Medeiros Silva was a crewman on a New Bedford whaling ship from 1853 until his death in 1871. (The Portuguese word "silva" translates into English as "wood" or "forest".) William Jr. was only 12 years old when his father died, and had to drop out of school and find a job to provide for his mother and younger siblings. Fortunately for William Wood, Andrew G. Pierce, a wealthy New Bedford textile manufacturer, offered him a job working in his Wamsutta Cotton Mill.

Pierce soon saw that hiring young William would prove to be extremely beneficial. Pierce was impressed with Wood's work and promoted him to the manufacturing department, where he learned cost structures and figures. At the age of eighteen, Wood left New Bedford for Philadelphia. With the help of Andrew Pierce, William was able to find a good job with a Philadelphia' brokerage firm, where he learned about stocks and bonds. He later returned to New Bedford, and worked at a bank. According to the Dukes County Intelligencer, when a Fall River textile company went bankrupt, its new manager hired William as paymaster. Then, in 1885, the Washington Mill in Lawrence went bankrupt and was purchased by Frederick Ayer of Lowell. Frederick Ayer and his brother James Cook Ayer were successful patent medicine producers.

American Woolen Company

Ayer was a multi-millionaire but knew nothing about the textile industry. This is when Ayer's new manager convinced Wood to leave his previous position and be his assistant in charge of manufacturing. A short time later, Wood was promoted to treasurer, and four years later he was made manager. Wood was then making a substantial amount of money for the time, around $25,000 a year. Within three years of his promotion, William Wood married Ayer's daughter Ellen, eventually making him a brother-in-law to General George S. Patton in 1888.

Later in life Prosecution and acquittal On May 26, 1920 the American Woolen Company of Massachusetts, the American Woolen Company of New York, and William M. Wood were indicted under the Lever Act for profiteering the Department of Justice. One newspaper described Wood's practices as "bold profiteering, nothing else", and was arguably the most infamous business owner in the textile industry at the time. According to the DOJ, William Wood and the companies profits amounted to 300-400%. Cuts which would eventually lead to the 1922 New England Textile Strike.

After Wood's death, his fortune became the subject of a major U.S. Supreme Court decision on the interpretation of the income tax laws. In the case of Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 279 U.S. 716 (1929), Chief Justice William Howard Taft held that where a third party (in this case, American Woolen Co.) pays the income tax owed by an individual, the amount of tax paid constitutes additional taxable income to that individual. The executors of his will therefore had to pay the back taxes on his estate.

Sports owner Wood owned the Shawsheen Indians which won the 1924–25 National Challenge Cup. In June 1925, the Indians entered the American Soccer League. Following Wood's death, the Indians withdrew from the league and folded.