Samuel B. H. Vance, as a Republican President of the New York City Board of Aldermen in 1873-74, briefly became Acting Mayor of New York City between the death of the elected Mayor William Havemeyer on November 30, 1874 and the inauguration of his elected successor, William H. Wickham on January 1, 1875. He was born of a distinguished family in Pennsylvania and served as a Captain of Volunteers in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. In 1854, Vance began participating in a series of firms making gas and electric lighting fixtures in New York City, twice succeeding company presidents who had died. He was elected to the New York City Board of Education in 1860, and to the Board of Aldermen in 1871 and was then chosen to be the latter's President on January 7, 1873, leading in turn to his one-month tenure as Acting Mayor in December, 1874. In 1885, he was one of three commissioners appointed by the New York Supreme Court to study surface transportation on lower Broadway between Union Square West and The Battery.