He was elected a member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1889. He was appointed clerk at the Speaker's table under SpeakerThomas B. Reed in the Fifty-first Congress, was elected a member of the Maine Senate 1903–1905, and served as its president in 1905.
He was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-third Congress and served from March 4, 1913, until his death in Portland, Maine May 28, 1913. His interment was in South Side Cemetery, Skowhegan.