# Josiah Quincy Jr.

Josiah Quincy IV (/ˈkwɪnzi/; January 17, 1802 – November 2, 1882) was an American lawyer, historian, and politician. He served as mayor of Boston from December 11, 1845, to January 1, 1849, following in the footsteps of his father, Josiah Quincy III (mayor from 1823 to 1828). His grandson Josiah Quincy VI, was also a mayor of Boston from 1895 to 1899.

## Early life

Josiah Quincy IV was born on Pearl Street in the Downtown neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts on January 17, 1802. He was the second child, and eldest son, of Josiah Quincy III and his wife Eliza Susan Morton. He was patrilineally a member of the Quincy family and his matrilineal uncle was Jacob Morton. His father was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Massachusetts, mayor of Boston, and President of Harvard University.
He attended Philips Academy in Andover and graduated from Harvard College in 1821.

## Career

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 elected to the Boston Common Council in 1833 and served as its president from 1834 to 1837.
As a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1837, he played a crucial role in establishing the Massachusetts Board of Education. He built the Josiah Quincy Mansion in 1848.
Quincy served as treasurer of the Boston Athenaeum from 1837 to 1852.

### Mayor of Boston

After being elected mayor of Boston in the December 1845 Boston mayoral election, Quincy succeeded Benson Leavitt, who had become acting mayor after the death of Mayor Thomas Aspinwall Davis, in his position as acting mayor on December 11, 1845. He officially became mayor on January 1, 1845. He served until January 1, 1849.
He authored Figures of the Past in 1883.
Quincy died on November 2, 1882, aged 80, in Boston.

## Travels

In 1844, while traveling with Charles Francis Adams, Josiah Quincy met Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in Nauvoo, Illinois. During the visit, Adams received a copy of the Book of Mormon which had previously belonged to Smith's wife, Emma Smith. The book is now in the archive collections of Adams National Historical Park. At the visit, Smith showed Adams and Quincy four Egyptian mummies and ancient papyri. Adams was unimpressed by Smith, and wrote in his diary entry that day, "Such a man is a study not for himself, but as serving to show what turns the human mind will sometimes take. And herafter if I should live, I may compare the results of this delusion with the condition in which I saw it and its mountebank apostle."

## Family

His brother Edmund (1808–1877) was a prominent abolitionist, and author of the biography of his father and of a romance, Wensley (1854). A sister, Anna Cabot Lowell Quincy Waterston, was a writer; and another sister, Eliza Susan (1798–1884) served as her father's secretary and wrote the biography of their mother.
Quincy had two sons — Josiah Phillips (1829–1910), a lawyer, who wrote, besides some verse, The Protection of Majorities (1876) and Double Taxation in Massachusetts (1889); and Samuel Miller (1833–1887), who practiced 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, a novelist.