Josiah Quincy Jr.


Josiah Quincy IV was an American politician. He was mayor of Boston, as was his father Josiah Quincy III and grandson Josiah Quincy VI.

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 in 1823 and became its captain in 1829 at the age of 27.
He was the author of Figures of the Past.
As a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1837, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Massachusetts Board of Education.
He built the Josiah Quincy Mansion 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 from 1837 to 1852.

Family

His brother Edmund was a prominent abolitionist, and author of the biography of his father and of a romance, Wensley. A sister, Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, was a writer; and another sister, Eliza Susan was her father's secretary and the biographer of her mother.
Quincy had two sons — Josiah Phillips, a lawyer, who wrote, besides some verse, The Protection of Majorities and Double Taxation in Massachusetts ; and Samuel Miller, who practised law, wrote on legal subjects, served in the Union army during the Civil War, and was breveted brigadier-general of volunteers in 1865.
A descendant of his, through her mother, was Helen Howe, novelist.