Graduated Dartmouth College in 1833; admitted to the Bar in Amherst, NH in 1836; moved to Lexington, MO in 1838; elected circuit attorney of the sixth judicial circuit of Missouri in 1848; reelected in 1882; delegate to the MO Constitutional Convention in 1861; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1868; elected judge of the 24th Judicial Circuit and served from 1871 until 1876 when he resigned; elected as independent Democrat to the forty-sixth congress in 1881.