sentences:  In 1864, Governor Horatio Seymour nominated him to the post of Health Officer of the Port of New York and, in 1867, he was renominated by Governor Reuben Fenton, serving a total of six years, until 1870.During his administration, despite the state legislature's reluctance to assign funding, he supervised the construction of then-state-of-the-art quarantine facilities on islands which were named Swinburne and Hoffman.While on a trip to Europe in July 1870, following retirement from the port, he arrived in France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.