History

Godfrey M. Hyams was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1859. As a child he moved with his family to Boston, where he graduated from Boston English High School and Harvard College.

Metallurgist, engineer and financier, he was responsible for the growth of such companies as the Anaconda Mining Company. He also planned and managed the construction of the Virginia Railway, which made available large sources of bituminous coal to the eastern part of the United States. In the course of his life he acquired great wealth but always maintained a simple style of living and chose not to seek the attention of the public usually attendant upon a man of such affluence. This sense of modesty was carried over into his personal life. Although he frequently made large gifts for charitable purposes, he usually withheld his identity.

Mr. Hyams lived in a three-decker house in Dorchester, Massachusetts, with his two sisters, Sarah and Isabel, both of whom were active in social work activities at the time. To assure that his money would be used for charitable purposes in perpetuity, Mr. Hyams established a charitable trust in 1921 to which the major portion of his estate was given upon his death in 1927. It was one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever made in Massachusetts.

In 1929 the major distribution of assets was made by the estate of Godfrey M. Hyams to the Godfrey M. Hyams Trust. At that time the trustees organized two Massachusetts charitable corporations, the Sarah A. Hyams Fund and the Isabel F. Hyams Fund, and transferred approximately $1,500,000 worth of securities to each of these two corporations.

For many years the Godfrey M. Hyams Trust and the smaller Sarah A. Hyams Fund had identical trustees and grantmaking purposes and processes. During 1993, the trustees voted to merge the Trust into the Sarah H. Hyams Fund and rename it "The Hyams Foundation, Inc." The Isabel F. Hyams Fund, Inc. (the Fund) is not a grantmaking foundation in the usual sense and for many years provided support to the East Boston Social Centers, Inc., a multi-service agency in East Boston. In 1996, the trustees of the Fund received permission from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts court to transfer the Fund's financial assets to The Hyams Foundation, Inc.