Norris Cotton (1900 - 1989)
Born at Warren (NH); died at Lebanon (NH) Lawyer; state and national legislator.
Portrait by George Augusta, 1973.
Presented to the State, 1974.

Norris Cotton attended Tilton School and Phillips Exeter Academy (both NH), before attending Wesleyan Universitv (CT). He had hoped to begin studies toward a law degree, but he was too poor to do so. Instead he returned to New Hampshire and found a job as a high school teacher (1922).

While teaching school Cotton ran for the State House of Representatives, and won. It was during the 1923 legislative session in Concord that Cotton met another young Representative, Stiles Bridges, with whom he became lifelong friends. This friendship was to have important consequences for New Hampshire's growth and development over the next half century.

Bridges and Cotton got to know another young legislator, John G. Winant. The two young men organized Winant's campaign for the governorship, and Winant was elected (served 1925/7).

The political campaign mounted by Bridges and Cotton attracted the notice of U.S. Senator George H. Moses, and Moses asked Cotton to join his Washington, D.C. staff. Cotton accepted the offer. He served on Senator Moses' staff (1924/8) while also earning his law degree at George Washington University. He also met and married (1928) a staff member to another U. S. Senator. Ruth (Isaacs) and Norris Cotton remained married until her death (1978). There were no children from the marriage.

Returning to New Hampshire, Cotton worked as a young lawyer for the Concord firm of Demond, Woodworth, Sulloway & Rogers (1928/33). The firm was prestigious but the pay for a starting lawyer was low; Cotton served as Clerk of the State Senate as an extra job. In 1933, at the blackest time of The Great Depression and at a time when the nation's banks closed their doors to the public, Cotton and his wife moved north to Lebanon (NH). There Cotton opened his own law firm, while also serving as Grafton County Attorney and as Judge of Municipal Court.

In the late 1930s the national economy began to improve, thanks to federal stimulus. Stiles Bridges was elected to the U.S. Senate (1936); John G. Winant earlier returned the governorship 1931/5). Norris Cotton formed the law firm of Cotton, Tesrau & Stebbins, and in 1943 he served again in the State House of Representatives (1943/5), first as Majority Leader (1943), then as Speaker of the House (1945).

In 1946 Cotton was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; the voters of the Second District returned Cotton to office three more times (served 1947/55).

In 1945 U.S. Senator Charles W. Tobey died in office. Norris Cotton won the primary and then the election to complete the remaining two years of Tobey's U.S. Senate term. Cotton was reelected to three full terms (1956, 1962, 1968), serving on the important Senate committees of Appropriations and Commerce. [He returned to Washington one last time as U.S. Senator, when during Summer 1975 he filled in as an interim Senator while a disputed election was resolved.]

Cotton's twenty years in the U.S. Senate were exceeded only by the twenty-five years served by Cotton's lifelong friend, U. S. Senator Stiles Bridges (1936/61). The power of these two New Hampshire Senators was based on their seniority, and together they were responsible for changing much of the New Hampshire economy in the years following World War Two. The state ascended undreamed-of heights of prosperity and political power, thanks to the efforts of Norris Cotton and his lifelong political friend.

References: Leon Anderson Papers, New Hampshire State Archives.