Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/347

 HON. JAMES A. WESTON.

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��received a majority of nearly four hun- dred and fifty. Mr. Weston was de- feated by a majority of some two hun- dred and fifty. At the election the fol- lowing year he was again the Demo- cratic candidate and was only defeated by a majority of eighteen votes by Theodore T. Abbott, the Republican candidate, an ex-Mayor of exceptional strength, who had previously polled a larger vote than had ever been cast for any other man for mayor in Man- chester.

In 1867 Mr. Weston was again pre- vailed upon to accept the Democratic nomination for Mayor, and the election resulted in his choice, over Joseph B. Clark, then mayor and Republican candidate for re-election, by»a majority of two hundred and seventy-two, his vote being larger than ever before cast for the candidate of any party, in the city, with the single exception of that cast for Mayor Abbott in 1855, the time of the great "know-nothing" excite- ment. A very spirited contest at the next election resulted in Mayor Wes- ton's defeat for re-election by Isaac W. Smith the Republican candidate, upon a heavy vote, by a majority of just twenty-three. In 1S69 he was again the Democratic candidate, and defeat- ed Mayor Smith's re-election, receiving a majority of one hundred and thirty- eight. Renominated in 1870, he was again elected, receiving a majority over both the Republican and Prohibition candidates.

Mayor Weston's efficient and suc- cessful administration of the municipal affairs of the city of 'Manchester, and the great popular strength which he had developed in that important manufac- turing metropolis of the state, directed the attention of the Democracy of the state generally to his fitness and avail- ability for the gubernatorial nomination of the party, and at their nominating convention in January, 1871, his name was placed at the head of the state ticket. The election resulted in the first defeat which the Republican party had experienced in the state since it came into ascendancy in 1855, there being no choice of governor by the

��people, though Mr. Weston received a decided plurality over Hon. James Pike, the Republican candidate, and lacked but a few votes of a clear ma- jority. Elected governor by the leg- islature in joint convention, he entered upon the duties of the office and de- voted thereto his best efforts and most earnest labors in behalf of all the ma- terial and popular interests of the state dependent in any degree upon execu- tive action or influence.

In 1872 the Republican leaders de- ' termined upon the restoration of their party to power, and fully appreciating the importance of the vote of the city of Manchester, as affecting the result, secured the nomination as the Republi- can candidate, of Hon. Ezekiel A. Straw, the able and popular agent of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the largest and most powerful manu- facturing corporation in that city, and in the state — a man of great popularity and influence not only in Manchester, but in all manufacturing communities throughout the state. The election resulted as was readily to be appre- hended in a Republican triumph, fol- lowed by the re-election of Gov. Straw in 1873 ; but in the campaign of 1S74, Gov. Weston, who had continued as the standard-bearer of his party upon earnest solicitation, again defeated the Republican nominee, Gen. Luther Mc- Cutchins, by a handsome plurality, although failing of an election by trie people as before, and was chosen gov- ernor by the legislature. At the muni- cipal election in Manchester, in Decem- ber previous, he had been for the fourth time elected mayor of the city, a distinction which no other citizen, except ex-Gov. Smyth, has ever en- joyed. As before, he discharged the duties of both his important executive positions with eminent ability and fidel- ity, and retired therefrom with the full confidence and respect of the people of his native state and city.

No man has taken a deeper interest in the welfare of the city of Manches- ter or labored more devotedly to pro- mote its prosperity, than has Gov. Wes- ton. The important enterprise known

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