Josiah Quincy IV (; January 17, 1802 – November 2, 1882) was an American politician. He was

mayor of Boston The mayor of Boston is the head of the municipal government in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has a mayor–council government. Boston's mayoral elections are nonpartisan (as are all municipal elections in Boston), and elect a mayor to a four- ...

(December 11, 1845 – January 1, 1849), as was his father

Josiah Quincy III Josiah Quincy III (; February 4, 1772 – July 1, 1864) was an American educator and political figure. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1805–1813), mayor of Boston (1823–1828), and President of Harvard University (182 ...

(mayor in 1823–1828) and grandson Josiah Quincy VI (mayor in 1895–1899).

Career

He attended Philips' Academy, Andover and graduated from Harvard College in 1821. He was elected a member of the

Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts is the oldest chartered military organization in North America and the third oldest chartered military organization in the world. Its charter was granted in March 1638 by the Great and Gen ...

in 1823 and became its captain in 1829 at the age of 27. He was the author of ''Figures of the Past'' (1883). As a member of the

Massachusetts State Legislature The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...

in 1837, he was instrumental in the establishment of the

Massachusetts Board of Education The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) is the state education agency responsible for interpreting and implementing laws relevant to public education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Public education in the Commonw ...

. He built the

Josiah Quincy Mansion The Quincy Mansion , also known as the Josiah Quincy Mansion, was a summer home built by Josiah Quincy, Jr. in 1848. The mansion itself was situated where Angell Hall now stands on the campus of the Eastern Nazarene College. The mansion, once a ...

in 1848. He was elected to the Boston City Council in 1833 and served as its president from 1834 to 1857. He served as mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. He served as treasurer of the

Boston Athenaeum Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

from 1837 to 1852.

Travels

In 1844, while traveling with Charles Francis Adams met

Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, ...

, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints, in Nauvoo, Illinois, where Adams received a copy of the Book of Mormon which had previously belonged to Smith's first wife,

Emma Smith Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 – April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the official wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as ...

. The book is now in the archive collections of

Adams National Historical Park Adams National Historical Park, formerly Adams National Historic Site, in Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Metropolit ...

. At the visit, Smith showed Adams and Quincy four Egyptian mummies and ancient papyri. Adams was not impressed by Smith, and wrote in his diary entry that day, "Such a man is a study not for himself, but as serving to show what turns the human mind will sometimes take. And herafter if I should live, I may compare the results of this delusion with the condition in which I saw it and its mountebank apostle."

Family

His brother Edmund (1808–1877) was a prominent abolitionist, and author of the biography of his father and of a romance, ''Wensley'' (1854). A sister, Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, was a writer; and another sister, Eliza Susan (1798–1884) was her father's secretary and the biographer of her mother. Quincy had two sons — Josiah Phillips (1829–1910), a lawyer, who wrote, besides some verse, ''The Protection of Majorities'' (1876) and ''Double Taxation in Massachusetts'' (1889); and Samuel Miller (1833–1887), who practised law, wrote on legal subjects, served in the Union army during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, and was breveted brigadier-general of volunteers in 1865. A descendant of his, through her mother, was

Helen Howe Helen Howe (January 11, 1905 – February 1, 1975) was an American novelist, biographer and monologist. Early life and education Helen Huntington Howe was born to Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe and Fanny Huntington Quincy Howe on January 11, 1905. H ...

, novelist.

Sources

* William Guild, ''Description of the Boston and Worcester and Western Railroads: In which is Noted the Towns, Villages, Station, Bridges, Viaducts, Tunnels, Cuttings, Embankments, Gradients, &c., the Scenery and Its Natural History, and Other Objects Passed by this Line of Railway. With Numerous Illustrations'', Boston?: Bradbury & Guild, 1847, p. 13.

References

;Attribution

External links

* , contains Quincy's speech of welcome to Boston for

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...