Mason Weare Tappan

Mason Weare Tappan (October 20, 1817 – October 25, 1886) was a New Hampshire state representative, a United States Representative from 1855 to 1861, a colonel during the American Civil War, and attorney general of New Hampshire. He was born in Newport, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, and spent his boyhood in Bradford, New Hampshire, where his family settled during his early years. Raised in a rural New England community, he was educated in local private schools that prepared him for further academic study.

Tappan pursued his education at the academies in Hopkinton and Meriden, New Hampshire, institutions that were then important preparatory schools for professional careers. After completing his academy studies, he read law in the traditional manner of the period and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He commenced the practice of law in Bradford, where he quickly established himself as a capable attorney and became active in local affairs, laying the groundwork for his later political career.

Tappan entered public life as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, serving from 1853 to 1855. His legislative service coincided with a period of significant political realignment in the United States, particularly over the issues of slavery and sectional conflict. His work in the state legislature brought him wider recognition within New Hampshire’s emerging anti-slavery and reform circles and positioned him for election to national office.

In 1854, Tappan was elected to the Thirty-fourth Congress as a candidate of the American Party, also known as the Know-Nothing Party, reflecting the nativist and reform currents of the mid-1850s. As national politics continued to shift, he aligned with the newly formed Republican Party and was reelected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1861. During his tenure in the House of Representatives, he served as chairman of the Committee on Claims in the Thirty-sixth Congress, a position that involved oversight of financial and legal claims against the federal government. He participated in the intense debates of the pre–Civil War era, as Congress grappled with the expansion of slavery and the preservation of the Union. Tappan chose not to be a candidate for renomination in 1860 and concluded his congressional service at the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress.

With the outbreak of the Civil War following the secession crisis of 1860–1861, Tappan returned to New Hampshire and offered his services to the Union cause. In 1861 he was commissioned colonel of the 1st New Hampshire Infantry, a three-months regiment raised in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s initial call for volunteers. Under his command, the regiment was organized, trained, and deployed for short-term service in the early months of the conflict. He mustered out of the volunteer service in August 1861, after the expiration of the regiment’s three-month enlistment, and resumed his legal and public activities in New Hampshire.

In the years following the Civil War, Tappan continued his legal practice and remained a prominent figure in New Hampshire’s public life. He was eventually appointed attorney general of New Hampshire, the chief legal officer of the state, a position in which he served until his death. As attorney general, he oversaw the state’s legal affairs and represented New Hampshire in significant civil and criminal matters, reflecting the trust placed in him by state authorities and the public.

Mason Weare Tappan died in office as New Hampshire attorney general on October 25, 1886, at the age of 69. He was interred in Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Bradford, New Hampshire, the community in which he had grown up and long maintained his home. His career spanned local, state, and national service during a transformative period in American history, encompassing antebellum politics, the crisis of disunion, and the postwar reconstruction of state institutions.