Godfrey M. Hyams was an American metallurgist, civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

, financier

Financier

Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...

, and philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

.

Hyams was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His family moved to Boston, Massachusetts while he was a child. He graduated from Boston English High School and attended Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

, where he graduated in 1881.

Hyams became an investment banker based in Boston, and specialized in natural resources. He was responsible for the growth of such companies as the Anaconda Mining Company. In the early 20th century, he was the principal financial manager for the construction of the Deepwater Railway

Deepwater Railway

The Deepwater Railway was an intrastate short line railroad located in West Virginia in the United States which operated from 1898 to 1907.William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County in 1896, sometimes called the Loup Creek and Deepwater...

 in West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

 and the Tidewater Railway

Tidewater Railway

The Tidewater Railway was formed in 1904 as an intrastate railroad in Virginia, in the United States, by William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, and his silent partner, millionaire industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers of Standard Oil fame...

 in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, which were combined in 1907 to form the Virginian Railway

Virginian Railway

The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads....

 (VGN), completed in 1909. The new railroad, ostensibly headed by coal mining manager William Nelson Page of Ansted, West Virginia

Ansted, West Virginia

Ansted is a town in Fayette County in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is situated on high bluffs along U.S. Highway 60 on a portion of the Midland Trail a National Scenic Byway near Hawk's Nest overlooking the New River far below....

, was financed almost entirely from the personal fortune of a silent partner

Silent partner

Silent partner may refer to:*An anonymous member of a business partnership, or one uninvolved in management*The Silent Partner, the name of several films*Silent partner , a piece of climbing equipment...

, industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers

Henry H. Rogers

Henry Huttleston Rogers was a United States capitalist, businessman, industrialist, financier, and philanthropist. He made his fortune in the oil refinery business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil....

, a native of Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Fairhaven is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is located on the south coast of Massachusetts where the Acushnet River flows into Buzzards Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean...

. It opened up major new areas of bituminous coal

Bituminous coal

Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...

 in some of the most rugged terrain in southern West Virginia for shipment to Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

, where a new coal pier

Coal pier

A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship.The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into the ship's cargo holds...

 was built at Sewell's Point

Sewell's Point

Sewells Point is a peninsula of land in the independent city of Norfolk, Virginia in the United States, located at the mouth of the salt-water port of Hampton Roads. Sewells Point is bordered by water on three sides, with Willoughby Bay to the north, Hampton Roads to the west, and the Lafayette...

.

Godfrey M. Hyams remained an officer of the Virginian Railway for the rest of his life. He remained unmarried, and when he died in 1927, he left the bulk of his estate in trust for charitable purposes. It was one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever made in Massachusetts.

His funds and those of a sister were combined later, and are now handled by The Hyams Foundation, Inc.