Dedham in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and as Chairman of the committee on Railroads earnestly opposed the loaning of the State’s credit to the Hoosac Tunnel scheme.  In 1870 he was a member of the Senate from the Second Norfolk District, and as a member of the Judiciary Committee drafted the well-known corporation act.  He was Chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Dedham from 1855 to 1864, and during the war his services were important and valuable.  He was President of the Dedham Institution for Savings and a director of the Dedham National Bank.

Judge Colburn was naturally a man of robust constitution and excellent health, and, until his prostration shortly before his death, had never been obliged to neglect his official duties for a day on account of sickness.

October 6.—­Hon. Thomas Talbot, Ex-Governor of Massachusetts, died at this home in Billerica at the age of sixty-seven years.  He was born at Cambridge, N.Y.  Sept. 7, 1818, and subsequently removed with the family to Danby, Vt.  After the death of the father, the family removed to Northampton, Mass. and Thomas at the age of thirteen began work in a woolen factory.  In the winters of 1837 and 1838 he attended an academy at Cummington.  Soon after, he joined his father in North Billerica, and the long manufactoring career of C.P.  Talbot & Co. was begun.  The firm still continues in the manufacture of woolen flannels, employing between two and three hundred hands.

Mr. Talbot’s first public service of note was as Representative from Billerica in the Legislature of 1852, and he was a member of the Constitutional Convention the following year.  He was elected a member of the Executive Council in 1864, and served five years in that honorable capacity in association with Governors Andrew, Bullock and Claflin.  In 1872 Mr. Talbot was elected by the Republicans as Lieutenant Governor upon the same ticket with Hon. William B. Washburn, who was elected as Governor.  Re-elected with Governor Washburn in 1873, he became Acting Governor when, during the legislative session of 1874, Governor Washburn was elected as United States Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. Charles Sumner.  One of the first important acts of his official life after this event was the approval of the “Ten-Hour bill.”

In the same year Mr. Talbot received the Republican nomination for Governor but was defeated by Hon. William Gaston.  In 1878 he again had the nomination, and was elected over Gen. Butler, Judge Abbott and A.A.  Miner.

He was presidential elector in 1876 and 1884, and was chairman of the State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity from its establishment in 1879 to 1884.

Mr. Talbot was strictly a temperance man and was a professed Prohibitionist.

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AMONG THE BOOKS.