Joseph Wightman is elected mayor of Boston.

[12/10-TOC] Wightman (D), with 8,834 votes, defeats Moses Kimball, with 5,674, and others. He lives at 189 Harrison Avenue. The first Democrat to be elected mayor in Boston, Wightman had been a Whig who left that party over the slavery issue. Supported by a group of businessmen known as the “Parker House Clique,” he is elected primarily as a result of the controversy over the refusal of Moses Kimball to make Faneuil Hall available for a Whig rally led by Daniel Webster. Wightman is inaugurated on January 7, 1861.