Biography

"U.S. Congressman, Dakota Governor. He graduated from Wyoming Academy in 1835, from Middlebury College in 1839, moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1840 and was a tutor in the branch of the Michigan University. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1842, practiced law in Detroit and was the Detroit City Treasurer, (1848-50). In 1855, he was elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress, elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth Congress and Thirty-sixth Congress, serving until 1861. Not a candidate for re-nomination. He was Postmaster of Detroit, (1861-66), plus land commissioner of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway and of the Northern Pacific Railway, (1869-78). In 1878, he was appointed the 6th Territorial Governor of Dakota by President Rutherford B. Hayes and served until his death."