Mason Weare Tappan (Congressional Biographical Directory)

TAPPAN, Mason Weare, a Representative from New Hampshire; born in Newport, Sullivan County, N.H., October 20, 1817; moved to Bradford, N.H., with his parents; attended private schools and the Hopkinton and Meriden Academies; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1841 and commenced practice in Bradford, N.H.; served in the state house of representatives 1853-1855; elected as an American Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress and reelected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1861); chairman, Committee on Claims (Thirty-sixth Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1860; during the Civil War served in the Union Army as colonel of the First Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry; again a member of the state house of representatives in 1860 and 1861; resumed the practice of law; appointed attorney general of the state in 1876, which position he held until his death in Bradford, Merrimack County, N.H., October 25, 1886; interment in Pleasant Hill Cemetery.