Born in Norwich, Chenango County, N. Y., on April 3, 1833. He prepared for college at Oxford academy, Oxford, N. Y. After graduation he commenced the study of law at Oxford, N. Y., but his health failing he returned to his boyhood and father's occupation of farming. He subsequently entered the office of Comstock & Newcomb, Syracuse, N. Y., the former a graduate of Union and judge of the New York court of appeals, where he completed his studies and was admitted to the bar. After some delays, caused by ill health, he started west, stopping at Cleveland, Ohio, during the winter of 1857-8, and finally in the summer of 1858 reached Sioux City, Iowa, where he practiced law. On February 1, 1872, he was married to Miss Maggie McDonald, of Sioux City, Iowa. He took the initiative in the formation of the Republican Party in his native county (Chenango), drawing up and having published the first call for same, and attending as a delegate the first state republican convention and the first county and judicial republican conventions of his section. In 1859 he was nominated by the republicans as a candidate for representative in the General Assembly of Iowa, and although the district, composed of four counties, was then largely democratic, was beaten only by a small majority (35) by Patrick Robb, his democratic opponent, also a graduate of Union. At the next election, 1861, he was renominated for the same office and elected by a majority, lacking only three votes of being two to one, as a republican and union candidate against Captain Morton, subsequently colonel of an Ohio regiment in the war of the rebellion. He was a member of the military committee, the most important committee of the session, and reported, and was directly instrumental in framing, the laws passed for the protection of soldiers in the service, and was at the head of the house special committee appointed at the extra session, which, together with the senate special committee, reported the law enabling the soldiers of Iowa in the army to vote. Id the fall of 1862 he was elected judge of the Fourth judicial district of Iowa, having twenty counties in the jurisdiction, which position he held four years, and then returned to the practice of law. He was a delegate to the national republican convention held at Philadelphia Pa., which nominated Grant for his second term, and was chairman of the committee on credentials, and was one of the presidential electors for that year for Iowa.