Joseph Homan Manley

Background

Joseph Homan Manley was born on October 13, 1842 in Bangor, Maine, where his parents, James Sullivan and Caroline (Sewall) Manley, were temporarily living.

Education

After going to the public schools of Augusta, he entered in 1853 the Abbott Family School for boys at Farmington, which he attended during four years. Since he never fully recovered from a severe illness he had at the age of five, he was compelled to give up the idea of going to college. In 1861 he began to study law in an office in Boston. In 1863 he was graduated from the law school at Albany, N. Y. , and returned to Augusta, where he practised law with Hilton W. True for some years.

Career

Admitted to practice in the federal courts in 1865, he was appointed commissioner of the district court. He began his political career as a member of the Augusta city council in 1865 and the next year was president of that body. In 1869 he was a special agent for the federal government in the department of internal revenue, resigned in November 1876, and became agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad to adjust its claims with the Treasury Department. He gave up this work in the spring of 1878, when he purchased from Joseph H. Homan, formerly his father's partner, a half interest in the Maine Farmer. For several years he was in active charge of its editorial columns. President Garfield in May 1881 appointed him postmaster at Augusta, and President Harrison appointed him to the same office in 1889. He resigned in August 1892 to assume his duties during the presidential campaign as a member of the Republican national executive committee. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1880, 1888, 1892, and 1900 and was chairman of the Republican national committee from 1896 to 1904. He was a member of the Republican committee of the state of Maine from 1881 to 1900 and its chairman from 1885 to 1900. He represented Augusta in the state legislature from 1887 to 1890 and again from 1899 to 1902. During the last session he was speaker. He was a member of the state Senate from 1903 to 1904. He was James G. Blaine's closest political friend. Where Blaine's political observations were general, his were specific. His detailed, acute, and accurate analyses were a great aid to Blaine in his political activities. After his defeat in the presidential campaign of 1884, Blaine personally asked Cleveland to keep Manley in office as postmaster at Augusta. Manley was in charge of Thomas B. Reed's interests at the Republican convention at Saint Louis in 1896. His honest though indiscreet and premature admission that McKinley's nomination was assured brought upon him the wrath of Reed's friends and supporting newspapers, who had planned to fight to the finish for Reed's nomination. The opposition of the Reed forces, thus engendered, was much in evidence later when he sought to realize his life's ambition of being governor of Maine. A carefully planned campaign, whose preliminaries were carried on by mail for fifteen months, came to nought when he was forced to withdraw on account of ill-health. Nor could he accept President Theodore Roosevelt's offer of an appointment as first assistant postmaster general. He had numerous other business interests in addition to the Maine Farmer.

Achievements

• American Republican Party official and chairman of the party's National Executive Committee, 1894–96. He was a commissioner of the United States District Court of Maine, and was a member of the Augusta City Council in 1865-1866, becoming Council president in 1866 and in this role he first became associated with Republican politician and future presidential candidate James G. Blaine. The large Richardsonian Romanesque U. S. Post Office Building in Augusta is one of his legacies. He also instituted free mail delivery service. Manley became Blaine's right-hand man on the Maine Republican State Committee, on which he served for sixteen years, he chaired it for 15 of those years. Manley also held a variety of state offices, serving in the Maine House of Representatives, 1899–1901, and as its Speaker in 1901, and the Maine State Senate, 1903–04. In addition he was a director, board member, trustee and benefactor of many businesses and public services, and was a strong advocate of education for women and secondary education for all students.

Membership

a member of the Republican committee of the state of Maine

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "As a political organizer, and as an astute reader of political conditions and forecasts, I never met Mr. Manley's equal".

Connections

He married on October 4, 1866, Susan H. Cony of Augusta, the daughter of Governor Samuel Cony. They had four children.

Father:

James Sullivan Manley

17 July 1816 - 9 December 1861

Mother:

Caroline Gill Sewall Manley

12 April 1818 - 8 December 1909

child:

Lucy Cony Manley Mellen

30 January 1869 - 1950

child:

Harriet Manley Woodbridge

17 December 1872 - 1 January 1911

child:

Samuel Cony Manley

21 Jul 1867 - 1930

child:

Sydney Sewall Manley Breck

1874 - 1951

Brother:

James Sewall Manley

15 April 1854 - 28 January 1908

Brother:

Charles Sewall Manley

7 June 1846 - 15 Jane 1847

Sister:

Lucy Manley

23 August 1851 - 22 September 1853

Sister:

Abbie Sewall Manley

25 July 1848 - 4 March 1922

Wife:

Susan Hannah Cony Manley

5 March 1839 - 17 February 1896

Friend:

James Gillespie Blaine

January 31, 1830 – January 27, 1893 Was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, serving as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1869 to 1875, and then in the United States Senate from 1876 to 1881.