Born in Fowlerville, New York on June 20, 1849, he moved with his parents to Hillsdale County, Michigan. He attended Adrian College and served in the Sixteenth Regiment of the Michigan Volunteer Infantry in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War from 1862 to 1865. He graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was admitted to the bar.

He set up practice in Hastings, Nebraska in 1872 and was a member of the Nebraska constitutional convention of 1875. He was elected as a Republican to fill the newly created 2nd district seat to the U.S. House of Representatives to the Forty-eighth United States Congress. He was reelected three times serving from March 4, 1883, until his death on August 17, 1889 in Hastings. He was buried in Hastings' Parkview Cemetery.