Josiah Dent

Josiah Dent (born August 26, 1817 in Maryland , †  October 28, 1899 in Berkeley Springs , West Virginia ) was an American politician . Between 1879 and 1882 he served as President of the Board of Commissioners Mayor of the federal capital Washington, DC

Career

After studying law and its made in the 1840s admitted to the bar Josiah Dent began in St. Louis ( Missouri to work) in this profession. There he was positively received when he actively helped to put a stop to the disease during a cholera epidemic . This referred to both human support and the organization of health measures. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he moved to Washington DC. Although he did not work as a lawyer there, he was entrusted, among other things, with looking after real estate when the owners were away. Some of his clients even served in the Confederation Army at the time .

After the war, Dent became chairman of the board of the Linthicum Institute , an alternative educational institution named after his father-in-law. In this institution, financially disadvantaged parents were given the opportunity to give their children a good education. Politically, he joined the Democratic Party . In 1874, Dent was a member of the commission that reformed the structure of the Washington city government. In 1878 he became a member of the three-person Board of Commissioners that governed the city of Washington. Within this group he was appointed chairman in 1879. In this capacity he practically exercised the office of mayor, even if this title was not officially used between 1871 and 1975. He held this post between 1879 and 1882. During this time he improved relations between the city and the US Treasury Department . After the end of his time as head of the Board of Commissioners , he lived in Georgetown until 1889 . He then moved to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, where he died on October 28, 1899. He was then buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington.

Web links

• Josiah Dent in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• The Political Graveyard

predecessor	Office	successor
Seth Ledyard Phelps	President of the Board of Commissioners, Washington DC 1879–1882	Joseph R. West