Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

524 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
sorting the papers were put in packages and boxes in chronological
and topical order. To Mr. Folsom's methods and industry is due
the present admirable condition of the city clerk's office.
The local canvass of the autumn of 1863 was vei-y much mixed in
reference to representatives. The attempt to return Trask, Harris,
and Mosely to the Legislature failed. In Ward 4 Warner C.
Sturtevant, republican, and E. W. Bond, democrat, were tied.
Daniel L. Harris ran in Ward 5 as an independent republican, and
Titus Amadou, republican, was elected in Ward 6. Sturtevant was
subsequently elected. In the city elections, a few weeks later, ex-
Mayor Bemis undertook to take the mayoralty away from Hemy
Alexander, Jr., and failed to do it, by five hundred votes. Mayor
Alexander had favored macadamized streets and more school-
houses, and as there was a bolt in the republican ranks, led by D. L.
Harris, Mr. Alexander's reelection was a genuine triumph. The
aldermen elected were : N. W. Talcott, William Patton, N. D.
Briggs, F. H. Harris, Charles Barrows, W. H. Wilkinson, Virgil
Perkins, and H. E. Mosely.
William S. Shurtleff was appointed judge of the Court of Probate
and Insolvency in the place of Judge John Wells, resigned, in Sep-
tember, I860. Mr. Shurtleff had made a good record as register of
the court for several years. We will speak presently of his command
of the Forty-sixth Regiment, which had just left the ser^'ice.
Samuel B. Spooner succeeded Shurtleff as register.
A. D. Briggs, republican, was elected mayor in 1864 without op-
position. Henr}- Alexander, Jr., was elected State senator, and
Horace J. Chapiu, Charles A. Winchester, and L. H. Taylor were
sent to the Legislature. A. N. Merrick was elected county commis-
sioner, Charles R. Ladd, county treasurer, and James 12. Russell,
register of deeds.
Lewis H. Taylor, a " profunder," made an unsuccessful attempt
in I860 to prevent Mayor Briggs's reelection ; and AVillis Phelps was
quite as unsuccessful, the next year, to prevent a third term for Mr.