He owned a general store and with his brother and other partners operated a sawmill and shipbuilding yard on the Clyde River from 1854 until late in the 1870s.

In 1855, he was named a justice of the peace and he served as school commissioner in Shelburne County and the Barrington district.

He represented Shelburne County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly as a Reformer from 1851 to 1855 and as a Liberal from 1859 until Confederation.

In 1867, he was elected to the 1st Canadian Parliament representing the riding of Shelburne as a Liberal-Conservative supporter of Sir John A. Macdonald.

This article about a Liberal party Member of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly is a stub.