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Leverett Saltonstall

Leverett Saltonstall was a Senator from Massachusetts between 1945 and 1967. Saltonstall was born in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, on September 1, 1892. He attended the public schools and Noble and Greenough School in Dedham and graduated from Harvard University in 1914 and from its law school in 1917. During the First World War, Saltonstall served in the United States Army as a first lieutenant.

He was admitted to the bar in 1919 and commenced practice in Boston. Saltonstall was a member of the board of aldermen of Newton from 1920-22, assistant district attorney of Middlesex County from 1921-22, and a member of the State house of representatives 1923-1936, serving as speaker 1929-1936. He was an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1936, governor of Massachusetts from 1939-45, and chairman of the National Governors' Conference in 1944.

He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on November 7, 1944, to fill the vacancy in the term ending January 3, 1949, caused by the resignation of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., but did not assume office until January 4, 1945, after completion of his term as governor. Saltonstall was reelected in 1948, 1954 and 1960, and served from January 4, 1945 to January 3, 1967. He was Republican whip from 1949 to 1957, chairman of the Committee on Armed Services (Eighty-third Congress) and the Republican Conference (Eighty-fifth through Eighty-ninth Congress), trustee and director of several mutual investment funds and charities. Saltonstall resided in Dover, Massachusetts, where he died in 1979.

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Leverett Saltonstall

—From the Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress

Recommended Reading

Salty: Recollections of a Yankee in Politics by Leverett Saltonstall (1976).