Person:Josiah Abbott (2)

ABBOTT, Josiah Gardner, a Representative from Massachusetts;
born in Chelmsford, Middlesex County, Mass., November 1, 1814;
attended the Chelmsford Academy, Concord, Mass.;
graduated from Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1832;
LL.D., Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., 1862, teacher;
lawyer, private practice;
member of the Massachusetts state house of representatives, 1836;
member of the Massachusetts state senate, 1841-1842;
aide to Massachusetts Governor Marcus Morton, 1843;
master in chancery, 1850-1855;
member of the Massachusetts state constitutional convention, 1853;
justice of the superior court, Suffolk County, Mass., 1855-1858;
overseer of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1859-1865;
several times was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for United States Senator;
declined an appointment to the supreme court bench in 1860;
declined the Democratic nomination for attorney general in 1861;
successfully contested as a Democrat the election of Rufus S. Frost to the Forty-fourth Congress (July 28, 1876-March 3, 1877);
was not a candidate for renomination in 1876;
member of the Electoral Commission created by the act of Congress approved January 29, 1877, to decide
the presidential election of 1876;
died on June 2, 1891, in Wellesley Hills, near Boston, Mass.;
interment in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Newton Lower Falls, Mass.

... Judge Josiah G. Abbott, one of the foremost members of the Massachusetts bar, served in the General Court, was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, justice of the Superior Court for the county of Suffolk from 1S55 to 1858, when he resigned (and two years later declined a place on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court), a representative in Congress in 1876-77, and a member of the Electoral Commission of 1877, the leader of the minority of that commission, preparing the address of the minority to the people of the United States, which, though approved, was not issued ...