Jonathan William Sanborn (1822 - 1903)
Born and died at Wakefield (NH).
Farmer, railroad manager, state legislator.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1878.
Presented to the State, 1878.

Sanborn (1822 - 1903) was born and died at Wakefield (NH). Educated at district school and at nearby Dow Academy, Sanborn worked on the family farm while teaching during the winter term for several years. Later he became a cattle trader and lumber merchant.

Active as a Wakefield selectman, Sanborn was elected a State Representative (1861, 1862) and a State Senator (1863). He was an executive advisor to Governor Gilman (1863, 1864), and he helped raise and equip Company A of the 13th New Hampshire Volunteers.

In the early 1870s Sanborn lobbied to get State permission for the expansion of the Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway Railroad, and he was involved with construction of the new Wolfeborough Railroad. In 1874 Sanborn became Superintendent of the Eastern Railroad's Conway Division; he was also elected to the State Senate (1874, 1875; President of the Senate, 1875).

For the rest of his life Sanborn was a lobbyist, lawyer and manager for the Boston & Maine Railroad. A lifelong Democrat, Sanborn left his party when the national convention nominated William Jennings Bryant and his "Free Silver" plank for the 1896 race for the presidency. He was a Republican delegate to the 1902 State Constitutional Convention.

Reference: George H. Moses, ed. New Hampshire Men (1893); "New Hampshire Necrology", Granite Monthly vol. XXXV no. 2 (August 1903).