From Congressman To Commissioner of Ellis Island
Following the war, Colonel Weber began his involvement in politics. His early efforts involved helping to organize the Republican Third Ward Grant club and being its president in 1867. The Third Ward Grant club was involved with the presidential run of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. In the area of local politics, Weber helped in reform of the rules for electing county committeemen. The reforms gave voters a greater share in selecting candidates for these offices.
He served as assistant postmaster of Buffalo 1871-1873. Sheriff of Erie County 1874-1876.
He engaged in the wholesale grocery business.
At the Republican Convention for the Thirty-third Congressional District, held at Niagara Falls, New York on September 3, 1884, John Weber was decided upon by a vote of 10-8 to be the Republican candidate for the Congressional seat. Weber was elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885 – March 3, 1889). He was unsuccessful when he ran for reelection in 1888 to the Fifty-first Congress.
He served as delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1888. Weber was appointed the Grade-Crossing Commissioner of the city of Buffalo. He held this post from 1888 to 1908.
In 1890 Weber was appointed as the first Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York. On the opening day of Ellis Island, January 1, 1892, Colonel Weber gave a $10 gold Liberty coin to 17-year-old Annie Moore, who was the first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island. He held this position until 1893. Weber also served as commissioner general of the Pan American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901.
Read more about this topic: John B. Weber
Famous quotes containing the words congressman, ellis and/or island:
“With all the surgical skill and the vital rays lavished on him he should talk like a—like a congressman at a filibuster.”
—Kenneth Langtry. Herbert L. Strock. Prof. Frankenstein (Whit Bissell)
“We cannot be sure that we ought not to regard the most criminal country as that which in some aspects possesses the highest civilisation.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“For four hundred years the blacks of Haiti had yearned for peace. for three hundred years the island was spoken of as a paradise of riches and pleasures, but that was in reference to the whites to whom the spirit of the land gave welcome. Haiti has meant split blood and tears for blacks.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)