US Congressman. He was born in Humphreysville (later renamed Seymour), Connecticut, and attended local common schools in Cheshire, Connecticut, before moving to New York City in 1843. While living in New York City he pursued interests in the hotel business with his father and also worked as a clerk in the dry-goods business. During the 1850s, he decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected. A Democrat, he then served New York's 6th District in the United States House of Representatives from 1853 to 1857. While in the United States Congress, he took part in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and was the only member of New York who voted against it. After his term in office was over he declined to be a candidate for renomination to the Thirty-Fifth Congress in 1856. He also studied law, passed the bar, but he never practiced as a lawyer. During the 1870s, he was a member of the Committee of Seventy, a group of Anti-Tammany Hall Democrats who worked hard to overthrow the crooked politician William "Boss" Tweed" from public office, and instead wanted to elect William Frederick Havemeyer as the Mayor of New York City, New York. He also served as Commissioner and President of the Department of Taxes and Assessments of New York City from 1872 to 1880 and was a Member of the Board of Estimates an Apportionments and Commissioner of Accounts. He retired from public life in 1882. In his later years, he was a vestryman and senior warden of the Anthon Memorial Church in New York and superintendent of the church's Sunday school for twelve years. He passed away from pneumonia at the Hotel Seville in Manhattan, New York, at the age of 83. His funeral was held at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, and he was laid to rest at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.