Reginald A. Fessenden House
The Reginald A. Fessenden House is a historic house at 45 Waban Hill Road in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts. It was the residence from 1919 to his death in 1932 of the inventor Reginald A. Fessenden (1866–1932), called "the father of radio broadcasting," because he was the first to broadcast the human voice and music by radio. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 in recognition of Fessenden's accomplishments.
William P. Fessenden
From 1865 to 1867, he headed the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which was responsible for overseeing the readmission of states from the former Confederacy into the Union. He wrote its report, which vindicated the power of congress over the rebellious states, showed their relations to the government under the constitution and the law of nations, and recommended the constitutional safeguards made necessary by the rebellion. At this point, Fessenden was the acknowledged leader in the senate of the Republicans. He was considered a moderate, rather than Radical, Republican.
During President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial in 1868, Fessenden broke party ranks, along with six other Republican senators, and in a courageous act of political suicide, voted for acquittal. These seven Republican senators were disturbed by how the proceedings had been manipulated in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. He, Joseph S. Fowler, James W. Grimes, John B. Henderson, Lyman Trumbull, Peter G. Van Winkle, and Edmund G. Ross defied their party and public opinion and voted against conviction. As a result, a 35-19 vote in favor of removing the President from office failed by a single vote of reaching a 2/3 majority. After the trial, Congressman Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts conducted hearings on the widespread reports that Republican senators had been bribed to vote for Johnson's acquittal. In Butler's hearings, and in subsequent inquiries, there was increasing evidence that some acquittal votes were acquired by promises of patronage jobs and cash cards.