A native New Yorker, Hone began his career in the auction business. He was so successful that by the age of forty-one he could retire from business to devote himself to his several interests, among them the formation of a splendid library and art collection. In 1826 he was elected mayor of New York and became active in the Whig party. He describes this experience in a diary he kept from 1828 until his death twenty-three years later. The manuscript diary (28 vols.) is owned by the Society.