He was born on March 31, 1863, in Bethlehem, New York.

He was a member of the New York State Assembly (Orange Co., 1st D.) in 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912 and 1913.

He championed a 1926 law mandating life imprisonment for four-time felony offenders, the Baumes law.

[1] At the New York state election, 1930, he ran on the Republican ticket for Lieutenant Governor of New York with Albert Ottinger but they were defeated by Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert H. Lehman.

He died while riding on a train on September 25, 1937, near Hudson, New York when returning from an Odd Fellows convention in Milwaukee.