At an early day he became interested and took an active part in the various public matters relating to the town. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Board of Education of West Farms, and by subsequent re-elections was continued in that position until the annexation of the town to the city of New York. His course in this board was distinguished by strict attention to the duties of the office, by his interest in educational matters and by the beneficial reforms which he advocated and introduced in the schools of the district.

Attached to the principles of the Republican party, he was, both before and since annexation, frequently chosen a delegate to represent the Assembly District in various State and other conventions of that party. He was for several years president of the Republican Association of the Twenty-fourth Ward, and has been frequently a delegate to the Republican County Committee of the City of New York and a member of the executive committee. His ability and energy being fully recognized by his party associates, he was nominated for member of the Assembly of 1879 to represent the First District of Westchester County, then comprising the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards of the city of New York, the city of Yonkers and the town of Westchester. Notwithstanding that the district was overwhelmingly Democratic, so great was his popularity and the confidence reposed in him by the people of both political parties, that he was elected. During his first term in the Legislature he served as chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, and as a member of the Committees on Commerce and Navigation, Roads and Bridges, and the special committee charged with the investigation of the affairs of the Brooklyn Bridge. His course was marked by such constant and carefiil attention to the interests of his district that he was renominated for and elected to the Assembly of 1880, as the representative of the new Twenty-fourth District of the city of New York, comprising the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards, as provided by the Reapportionment Act of 1879.