Walter Lenox was Mayor of Washington, D.C. for one two-year term, from 1850 to 1852. Lenox was the first mayor to be born in the city of Washington, graduating from Yale in 1837 and returning to the capital to practice law in the early 1840s. During at least part of that period, he lived with future Washington mayor Richard Wallach

Richard Wallach

Richard Wallach was an American politician who served as the first Republican Mayor of Washington, D.C.-History:...

.

Lenox served on the Washington city council (the lower of its two legislative chambers) from 1842 to 1843, then as an Alderman from 1843 to 1849, serving his last term as President of the Board of Aldermen. Thus when mayor William Winston Seaton

William Winston Seaton

William Winston Seaton was an American journalist, born in King William County, Va.From 1812 until 1860 he was, with his brother-in-law Joseph Gales, proprietor of the National Intelligencer at Washington, D.C. From 1812 until 1820 the two were the only reporters of congressional proceedings...

 declined to run for a sixth term in 1850, Lenox was the heir apparent

Heir apparent

An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....

 — although because of his young age (only 33), he was dismissed by many residents of the city, particularly when the popular former mayor Roger C. Weightman

Roger C. Weightman

Roger Chew Weightman was an American politician, civic leader, and printer. He was the mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1824 to 1827....

 announced his intention to seek the office again. Ultimately, Lenox won the election by 32 votes.

Lenox's term as mayor was of little note; his most prominent accomplishments were his presiding at the laying of the cornerstone of the extension to the U.S. Capitol, service on the Washington Monument

Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...

 Association, and proclamation of an official day of mourning for the deceased President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

. The records of the Columbia Historical Society also note that he was "deeply concerned with the education of the youth. He gave greater attention to the public school question than any other."http://books.google.com/books?id=LSkkCeq5R1AC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=%22walter+lenox%22+dc&source=web&ots=qUpx57vOJ8&sig=gYtIgFulwctgjI6RBwy344YMgnA#PPA170,M1

Lenox was a Whig, which became a liability in the mayoral election of 1852 (the year in which the Whig Party collapsed). His Democratic opponent, John Walker Maury, defeated Lenox by almost 900 votes.

After his mayoralty, Lenox married but became a widower after only eighteen months. He enlisted with the Confederate

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

 Army when the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 erupted, and upon returning to Washington in 1863 to settle the estate of a deceased relative, spoke openly in contempt of the Union and was arrested and imprisoned by his old friend, General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

. Prison at Fort McHenry

Fort McHenry

Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, is a star-shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in Chesapeake Bay...

 shattered Lenox's health, and he died in 1874 at the age of 57. He was interred at Rock Creek Cemetery

Rock Creek Cemetery

Rock Creek Cemetery — also Rock Creek Church Yard and Cemetery — is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE in Washington, D.C.'s Michigan Park neighborhood, near Washington's Petworth neighborhood...

in Washington.