Person Colby Cheney Explained

Person Colby Cheney
Order1:35th
Office1:Governor of New Hampshire
Term Start1:June 10, 1875
Term End1:June 7, 1877
Predecessor1:James A. Weston
Successor1:Benjamin F. Prescott
Order2:United States Senator from
New Hampshire
Term Start2:November 24, 1886
Term End2:June 14, 1887
Appointer2:Moody Currier
Predecessor2:Austin F. Pike
Successor2:William E. Chandler
Order3:19th
Office3:Mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire
Term Start3:1872
Term End3:1872
Predecessor3:James A. Weston
Successor3:Charles H. Bartlett
Office4:Member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives
Term4:1854
Birth Date:February 25, 1828
Birth Place:Holderness, New Hampshire (now Ashland)
Death Place:Dover, New Hampshire
Party:Republican

Person Colby Cheney (February 25, 1828 – June 19, 1901) was a paper manufacturer, abolitionist and Republican politician from Manchester, New Hampshire. He was the 35th governor of New Hampshire and later represented the state in the United States Senate.

Biography

Cheney was born in Holderness (now Ashland) to abolitionists, Abigail and Moses Cheney. Oren Burbank Cheney, the founder of Bates College, was Person Cheney's older brother. Cheney attended academies in Peterborough and Hancock and the Parsonsfield Seminary in Parsonsfield, Maine. He engaged in the manufacture of paper in Peterborough until 1866, and in 1854 was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

During the Civil War he was first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster in the Thirteenth Regiment of the New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry (1862–1863). He was state railroad commissioner from 1864 to 1867. He moved to Manchester in 1867, and engaged in business as a dealer in paper stock and continued the manufacture of paper at Goffstown.

Political career

He also engaged in agricultural pursuits until being elected mayor of Manchester in 1871. He was Governor of New Hampshire from 1875 to 1877. Cheney was appointed as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Austin F. Pike, and served from November 24, 1886, to June 14, 1887, when a successor was elected and qualified. He was not a candidate for election to fill the vacancy and resumed his former manufacturing pursuits.

Cheney served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Switzerland in 1892–1893. He died in Dover, New Hampshire in 1901 and is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery at Manchester.

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