Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/41

 THE

��GRANITE MONTHLY.

��A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, HISTORY AND STATE PE OGRESS.

��VOL. II.

��AUGUST, 1878.

��NO. 2.

��HON. JOSEPH D. WEEKS.

��In the last number of the Granite Monthly there appeared a sketch and accompanying portrait of Hon. David H. Buffum, President of the State Sen- ate. Appropriately following the same we take as our subject of illustration for this number Hon. Joseph D. Weeks of Canaan, Senator from District Num- ber Eleven, and the Democratic candi- date for President of the Senate.

Mr. Weeks is the eldest son of Hon. William Pickering Weeks of Canaan, a well-known and successful lawyer of Grafton County, and prominent member of the Democratic party, to whom some reference in this connection seems emi- nently proper. He was a native of the town of Greenland, born Feb. 22, 1803, a son of Brackett and Sarah (Pickering) Weeks. The families of Weeks and Pickering from which he sprang, were among the early and leading families of that town, and their descendants now constitute a very considerable propor- tion of its population. He fitted for col- lege at Gilmanton Academy, among his schoolmates at which institution being Profs. Edwin D. and Dyer H. Sanborn and Dixi Crosby, and graduated at Dart- mouth in the class of 1826, the late Chief

��Justice Salmon P. Chase being a member of the same class, and also his room- mate. He studied law with Hayes & Cogswell of South Berwick, Me., and was admitted to the York County Bar at Alfred in 1829, but immediately re- moved to the town of Canaan and estab- lished himself in practice. By diligent application to business and careful at- tention to the interests of his clients, he soon secured a remunerative practice and won a high reputation as a safe and judi- cious counsellor. He continued in prac- tice until 1861, a period of thirty-two years, when he retired, taking up his residence upon a large farm just below the village, where he lived until his death in 1870. He had devoted himself almost exclusively to the labors of his profes- sion, but his firm adherence to the prin- ciples of the Democratic party, as well as his high character and ability occa- sioned a demand for his services in pub- lic life at the hands of his fellow towns- men of that political faith, by whom he was chosen a representative to the Legis- lature at several times between 1834 and 1851. He was elected to the State Sen- ate in 1848 and 1849, and was chosen President of the Senate for the latter

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