[7] He was a close friend of Massachusetts Governor William E. Russell,[5] who appointed him as a Justice of the peace.
He later served his local community in a number of other official roles, initially in Montague, and from 1889, in Turners Falls.
[5] A lifelong Democrat, and an early supporter of William Jennings Bryan, Atherton was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1896, which took place in Chicago, and notable for Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech, considered as one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
He married Alma J. Bascom on December 18, 1863, in Gill, Massachusetts after being honorably discharged.
[1][9] Atherton was a New England descendant of Puritan heritage,[10] whose ancestors had settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony.