RARE “Massachusetts Governor\" William B. Washburn Cut Signature For Sale

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RARE “Massachusetts Governor\" William B. Washburn Cut Signature:
$69.99

Up for sale "Massachusetts Governor" William B. Washburn Clipped Signature. 

31, 1820 – October 5, 1887) was an American businessman and politician from Massachusetts. Washburn served several terms in the United

States House of Representatives (1863–71) and as the 28th Governor of Massachusetts from 1872 to 1874, when he won

election to the United States Senate in

a special election to succeed the recently deceased Charles Sumner. A moderate Republican, Washburn only

partially supported the Radical

Republican agenda during the American Civil War and

the Reconstruction Era that

followed. A Yale graduate,

Washburn parlayed early business success in furniture manufacture into banking

and railroads, based in the Connecticut River valley town of Greenfield. He was a major

proponent of railroads in northern and western Massachusetts, sitting on the

board of the Connecticut River Railroad for

many years, and playing an oversight role in the construction of the Hoosac

Tunnel. He has been described as a latter-day "Connecticut

River God" because of his role as a leading regional businessman and

politician. William Barrett Washburn was born on January 31, 1820 in Winchendon, Massachusetts,

to Asa and Phoebe (Whitney) Washburn. His father was a hat maker from a family

with deep colonial roots; Emory Washburn, who was Governor of Massachusetts in

1854, was a distant cousin. Asa Washburn died in 1823. Washburn

was educated in the academies at Hancock and Westminster, and then

attended Yale College, graduating

in 1844. He was a member of the Skull and Bones Society. He was employed as a store clerk

from 1844 to 1847 in the business of his uncle in Orange. He established a

chair factory in Erving, operating it from 1847 to 1857 and parlaying a $10,000

($270,000 in 2019 dollars) investment into a wood products business whose

annual production exceeded $150,000 ($4,120,000). In 1849 he cofounded the

Franklin County Trust Company, on whose board he sat until 1858. He moved

to Greenfield in 1857,

where he was elected president of the Greenfield Bank (later the First National

Bank), a post he would hold for the rest of his life.

In 1847, Washburn married Hannah Sweetser of Athol; the couple had six

children, with four surviving to adulthood. Washburn won election to

the Massachusetts Senate in

1850 and served two years in the Massachusetts

House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855. His elections

to the state legislature were supported by proponents of the Hoosac

Tunnel. In 1862 Washburn ran for Congress as a Republican, winning

election to the 38th Congress against no opposition. He was reelected four

times, winning each time by wide margins. He was viewed as relatively

moderate, in comparison to the mostly Radical served as chairman of the Committee on

Claims during the 41st Congress. In 1871, Washburn ran

for Governor of Massachusetts.

The Republican Party was then dominant in state politics, and a number of well-known politicians vied

for the party nomination to replace outgoing Governor William Claflin. Most prominent was the former Congressman

and American Civil War general Benjamin F. Butler,

who was disliked by the fiscally conservative state Republican establishment

over his support for the continued issuance of greenbacks (currency not backed by silver or gold), and

who frequently used populist tactics to upset convention proceedings. Butler's

opponents eventually united behind Washburn to give him the nomination, and he

won the general election by a 13,000 vote margin over John Quincy Adams II and

a labor candidate. He was reelected to further terms in 1872 and 1873, the

former despite dissension in Republican ranks that had resulted in the

splitting off of the Liberal

Republican Party, who fielded Francis W. Bird. The 1873

convention was particularly affected by the actions of Butler supporters, but Washburn

prevailed and was again comfortably reelected Washburn's three victories

over Butler in these conventions marked a low point in the latter's career. The

major event of 1872 during Washburn's tenure as governor was the Great Boston Fire of 1872,

which destroyed 65 acres (26 ha) of prime commercial real estate in the

city on November 9. The legislature was called into a special session to enable

the provision of state assistance. Measures it passed included a bill

simplifying the establishment of insurance companies, since several were

bankrupted by the blaze, and a bill authorizing the city to issue bonds to

speed the rebuilding effort. 1873 brought a new round of state funding in the

amount of $200,000 to fund the final completion of the Hoosac Tunnel, a

tightening of the state's alcohol prohibition laws, and the establishments of a

new prison in Concord (now MCI Concord)

and a mental hospital in Salem. In 1874,

Washburn signed legislation establishing a women's reformatory. Although

Washburn was a supporter of women's

suffrage, the matter was not seriously considered by the legislature

during his term. He also supported legislation reforming the state's child

labor and education laws, which were widely flouted. He opposed enactment

of a labor bill limiting work to ten hours per day, a subject of regular labor

agitation during his tenure. When United States Senator Charles Sumner died in March 1874, the state senate,

which then chose the state's US senators, met to choose his replacement. After

a long and contentious debate involving thirty-three ballots, Washburn was chosen to succeed Sumner as a

compromise candidate acceptable to supporters of Henry L. Dawes and George F. Hoar. Washburn then resigned the governorship,

leaving Lieutenant Governor Thomas

Talbot as Acting Governor Washburn served from April 17,

1874 until the term ended on March 3, 1875, and refused to run for reelection.

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