Biography
A Representative and a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Concord, Mass., August 29, 1826; attended Concord Academy; graduated from Harvard University in 1846 and from the Harvard Law School in 1849; admitted to the bar in 1849 and commenced practice in Worcester, Mass.; elected to the State house of representatives in 1852; elected to the State senate in 1857; elected as a Republican to the Forty-first and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1869-March 3, 1877); was not a candidate for renomination in 1876; one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1876 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against William W. Belknap; appointed a member of the Electoral Commission created by act of Congress to decide the contests in various States in the presidential election of 1876; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1877; reelected in 1883, 1889, 1895, and 1901 and served from March 4, 1877, until his death in Worcester, Mass., September 30, 1904; chairman, Committee on Privileges and Elections (Forty-seventh through Fifty-second Congresses), Committee on the Judiciary (Fifty-second Congress, Fifty-fourth through Fifty-eighth Congresses), Committee on the Library (Fifty-second Congress); overseer of Harvard University 1874-1880 and from 1896 until his death; Regent of the Smithsonian for many years; interment in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Mass.
Courtesy of Biographical Directory of the United States Congress