speculator, railroad promoter, Congressman, b. Nantucket, Mass. He moved to New York City in 1826, and later in the same year moved to Buffalo, N.Y. From 1842 to 1845 he lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was one of the owners of a commission firm that laid out the townsite of Toledo, Ohio. He was also active in promoting steamboating on the Great Lakes, and in the 1830's became a large stockholder in the Erie and Kalamazoo R.R. In 1845 he moved to Wisconsin, settling in Fond du Lac, where he lived for the next five years and engaged in real estate promotion. After 1850 he made his home on a farm in the town of Empire, Fond du Lac County. He was a promoter and president of the Rock River Valley R.R., and was also a promoter of the Chicago and North Western R.R. A Democrat, he was elected to Congress in 1852, and served from Mar., 1853, to Mar., 1855. Defeated for re-election in 1854, he returned to his business pursuits in Wisconsin, and shortly thereafter lost his life when the steamer Niagara burned in Lake Michigan off Port Washington. Biog. Dir. Amer. Cong. (1928); W. A. Titus, Hist. of the Fox River Valley . . . (3 vols., Chicago, 1930).

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]