Compiled by Russell Bastedo
State Curator
1998

Person C. Cheney (1875, 1876) . Born at Holderness (now Ashland, NH); paper mill manager. In state politics from 1853.

Person Cheney (1828-1901) was one of eleven children born to Moses Cheney, a paper manufacturer and his wife. The family moved to Peterborough when Cheney was seven years old (1835), and Cheny received his education at academies in Peterborough, Hancock, and Parsonfield (ME). He also learned his father's business and in 1845 took over management of his father's paper manufacturing factory. By 1853, aged 25, Cheney was a partner in the manufacturing firm of Cheney, Hadley & Going. He entered state politics as a representative from Peterborough to the legislature in the same year.

During the Civil War years, Cheney was appointed quartermaster of the 13th New Hampshire Volunteers (September 1862). He became seriously ill and sent a substitute to serve for him, receiving an honorable discharge from military service (August 1863). Soon thereafter Cheney won election as a railroad commissioner, serving 1864/7.

In 1866 Cheney moved to Manchester and managed a paper plant in Goffstown. He headed two companies, Cheney & Thorpe and P.C. Cheney Company; he was elected mayor of Manchester (1871/2). In 1875 Cheney was the Republicans' nominee for governor; he won when a close popular election threw the choice into the legislature. He was nominated for a second term (1877) by acclamation, and defeated Democrat and Prohibition Party opponents handily.

As governor Cheney presided over dismantling what his Democrat predecessors had wrought. He restored appointment of judges and redistributed patronage jobs to Republicans. In a period of fiscal uncertainty (in the wake of the 1873 financial panic and the coming Great Railroad Strike of 1877), the Cheney administration worked to reduce state debt through reform of state government. Cheney urged (December 1876) a simplified amending process, a smaller number of representatives, a larger Senate and biennial elections as ways to lessen the cost of government and improve efficiency. He also urged abolition of the religious test (elimination of the ban on Catholics in office).

Cheney retired from state office to his extensive interests in Manchester. Ten years later (1886/7) governor Moody Currier appointed Cheney to fill out the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Austin A. Pike. Cheney was an 1888 delegate to the Republican National convention, and a member of the Republican National Committee until 1900. He also served as envoy extraordinary to Switzerland (1892/3). He died in 1901.

Location: State House, Second Floor
Portrait by E.L. Custer, 1877; Gift of Governor Cheney