So Manchester is going to inaugurate a new mayor tomorrow, and if you believe the statistics coming out of City Hall, Frank Guinta will become the 47th man to hold the office.

And yes, they've all been men.

So far.

Of course, me being me, I have some minor numerical quibbles with that "47th man" thing — quibbles that revolve around the mayoral tenure of the un-elected Byron Worthen, who assumed the office upon the resignation of Edgar Knowlton way back in 1894 — but I shall save those quibbles for another day.

Today, we're dealing with legacies.

Eugene Reed was Manchester mayor from 1903 to 1908 and a seven-time winner of the New Hampshire Trapshooting Championship.

All of the men who have served as mayor of Manchester have come to be identified in part by their achievements (or failures), but also by their personal interests or elements of their personality that shaped their image in the public eye.

You say Bob Baines?

I think boundless energy.

You say Ray Wieczorek?

I think Verizon Wireless Arena.

Sylvio Dupuis wasn't just an optometrist, he was a visionary. Bob Shaw wasn't just feisty, he was downright pugnacious. I defy you to describe Roland Vallee's tenure without referring to his singing ability, or to explain the phenomenon that was Josaphat T. Benoit without referring to his longevity or his prodigious intellect.

As for Eugene Reed?

He was a straight shooter.

In fact, Manchester has never had a mayor who was Reed's equal when it comes to straight shooting, because the man who sat in the corner office at City Hall from 1903 to 1908 was a seven-time winner of the New Hampshire Trapshooting Championship.

Clever sportswriters couldn't resist nicknaming him "The Mayor," as he went on to win the state crown in Massachusetts three times. He also won the New England championship three times, and I can't help but wonder how Mayor Reed might have employed his particular skills — not to mention his signature Lefever hammerless side-by-side rifle — while conducting the business of his office.

I see it like this:

Mayor Reed: "This meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen will come to order. Is there any new business?"

Alderman One: "I make a motion we pass a massive civic tax increase to fund an important, winter-time, aldermanic fact-finding mission to Acapulco."

BANG!

Mayor Reed: "Any more new business?"

Alderman Two: "Nope."

Alderman Three: "I'm good."

Of course, this is just my own whimsical take on Reed's bureaucratic style because, rather than reading actual front-page news coverage of his administration, I was far more intrigued by the headlines he made on the sports page.

"The Manchester mayor is game under fire," The Mirror and American reported on July 28, 1907. "This has been repeatedly demonstrated, and he stands today (as) the champion amateur trap shot of New England. With every likelihood, the honor will remain with him for some time to come, due to his coolness, steadiness of nerve and physical endurance."

Now, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the Mirror's reporting, but I can vouch for Reed's accuracy on the trap-shooting range. In one stretch of matches in the summer of '07, he shattered 485 of the 500 clay pigeons that dared to cross his path.

That's 97 percent shooting, folks, and if you prefer celebrity to statistics, you should know that Reed took part in shooting exhibitions with the likes of band master John Philip Sousa and a little lady by the name of Annie Oakley.

Yeah, that Annie Oakley.

Even Reed had to concede center stage when it came to "Little Miss Sure Shot." Although the mayor took first place during a competition in Lexington, Mass., in the summer of '06, Annie Oakley stole the show when "her ability to handle the gun and shoot made some of the men shooters look like novices."

If you're wondering how I came to know so much about Reed, the credit goes to Peter Tomaini. He belongs to the New Hampshire Trapshooting Association, and he's collected reams of material on the sport for what he modestly calls "a brief and incomplete history."

A lot of that history has to do with Reed, obviously, but he wasn't the only Reed who made headlines.

"He had an older brother named Elmer E. Reed," Peter said, "and when they competed in an event, one or the other usually won, while one or the other took second place, and when you had two E.E. Reeds — Elmer and Eugene — it was difficult to tell who was who, so one of the good things to come from his political career is that, when shooting, Eugene adopted the pseudonym of 'Mayor.'"

In compiling the history of trapshooting in New Hampshire, Peter's task was made all the easier when it was discovered Reed kept a meticulous record of his shooting achievements, with scrapbooks, programs and newspaper clippings.

"And because of the lack of other sporting events back then," he added, "the amount of space that newspapers devoted to shooting events was really remarkable."

So was Reed.

Before he went into local politics, he played professional baseball, and in 1901, he managed the Manchester team to the New England League championship.

After serving three terms as mayor, the West Side native ran for Congress in 1910, but he lost to eight-term incumbent — and fellow Manchester resident — Cyrus A. Sulloway. Two years later, Reed bounced back and took Sulloway's House seat away. Sulloway returned the favor and ousted Reed in 1914.

He caught a break when his close friend, President Woodrow Wilson, named him secretary of commerce for the Philippines, and he stayed on the federal payroll when another close friend, President Franklin Roosevelt, later named him director of the National Recovery Administration in New Hampshire.

Clearly, before he died on Dec. 15, 1940, Eugene Reed compiled a remarkable record of service, a record that ultimately overshadowed his sharpshooting skills. For the most part, he was a man who hit what he aimed at, unless you count his unsuccessful run for United States Senate in 1918.

That one time?

Maybe he set his sights too high.

John Clayton is the author of several books on Manchester and New Hampshire, including the newly released "You Know You're In New Hampshire When . . ." His e-mail address is jclayton@unionleader.com.