Endicott Peabody

Early life

Endicott Peabody, nicknamed "Chub", was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Mary Elizabeth (née Parkman) and the Rev. Malcolm E. Peabody, former Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. He was a grandson of the founder of Groton School and Brooks School, also named Endicott Peabody. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College in 1942. An All-America star defensive lineman for the Harvard Crimson football team, he was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Peabody served in the United States Navy during World War II. He received the Silver Star for gallantry for service as a Lieutenant aboard the USS Tirante in the Pacific Ocean theater.

After the war Peabody attended Harvard Law School, receiving his J.D. degree and attaining admission to the Massachusetts bar in 1948. He was Assistant Regional Counsel for the Office of Price Stabilization and Regional Counsel for the Small Defense Plants Administration in the early 1950s. From 1954 to 1956 he served on the Massachusetts Governor's Council. During the 1960 presidential election he coordinated John F. Kennedy's campaigns in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.

Governor

In the Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 1962, Peabody was elected Governor, upsetting Republican incumbent John Volpe by only 4,431 votes out of over two million cast.

During his administration, voters approved a state constitutional amendment extending the terms of office of all state constitutional officers from two years to four years, starting from the next election. Peabody advocated laws to prevent discrimination in housing and to establish drug addiction treatment programs. He also strongly opposed capital punishment and "vowed that he would not sign a death warrant even for the Boston Strangler, if he were ever caught and convicted."

On April 1, 1964, a front-page news story occurred when the governor's 72-year-old mother, Mary Parkman Peabody, was arrested at the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida, for attempting to be served in an integrated group at a racially segregated restaurant, which made her a hero to the Civil Rights Movement and brought the efforts in St. Augustine, the nation's oldest city, to national and international attention. The story of her arrest has been told in many books, including one by her arrest companion, Hester Campbell, Four for Freedom.

Peabody is remembered for recommending the commutation of every death sentence that he reviewed while he served as governor between 1963 and 1965, in connection with his efforts to get the legislature to abolish the death penalty.

In September 1964, Lieutenant Governor Francis X. Bellotti defeated Peabody in the Democratic primary. Bellotti then lost the general election to Volpe.

Senate campaign

In 1966, Peabody successfully sought the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat, which was open that year; he was defeated by a landslide in the general election by liberal Republican state Attorney General Edward Brooke.

1972 vice presidential election

Peabody undertook a quixotic campaign for Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket in 1972; he came in fourth in the balloting at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He ran under the slogan "Endicott Peabody, the number one man for the number two job."

New Hampshire

In 1983, he moved to Hollis, New Hampshire, where he ran unsuccessfully for local and statewide political office several times, including a 1986 senatorial campaign against Republican Warren Rudman. He died from leukemia in 1997 in Hollis, aged 77. His remains were interred in Groton, Massachusetts.

Family

Peabody was a descendant of the colonial Massachusetts governor John Endecott.

On June 24, 1944 he married Barbara Welch "Toni" Gibbons (1922–2012), a native of Bermuda, the elder daughter of Morris Gibbons, a member of the Parliament of Bermuda, and his wife, the former Maude Madge Welch. Peabody and his wife had a daughter, Barbara, and two sons, Robert and Endicott Jr.

Peabody's sister, Marietta Peabody Tree, represented the United States on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Navy awards