He was of Irish ancestry on his mother's side.
He moved to Elizabethtown, Canada West around 1830, with his parents. They then moved to Newcastle, Canada West around 1838. He came to Waukokee, Minnesota in 1860.
On December 11, 1877 he received a patent for an improved electro-vapor bath.
He became editor of the Dollar Weekly published in Wykoff in 1878.
He became a gravestone carver and established Fountain Marble Works in 1882.
He died in in Preston, Fillmore County, Minnesota. He was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Preston, Minnesota.