BOSTON (AP) – Belden G. Bly Jr., a lawyer and professor who served in the state Legislature for 32 years, died Friday. He was 92.

Bly grew up in Revere and lived in Saugus while he worked at the Statehouse. He then moved to Wakefield about 20 years ago and practiced law.

“Mentally he was just as sharp as a tack,” his son, Belden G. Bly III told The Boston Globe. “He was still in his office every day up until two weeks ago. He was kind of a Saugus institution.”

Bly was elected to the house in 1948. He served on the Ways and Means committee and on the Committee on Aging. He was also decades ahead of his time when in 1974 he advocated for a non-smoking section at the Statehouse.

“I mind if they smoke, and I’m speaking up,” he said at the time. “If we must have dirty politics, we can at least have clean air.”

Bly’s son called his father a “Rockefeller Republican,” explaining that he was a social liberal, but conservative when it came to economics and national defense.

“He was loved by everyone, Democrats as well as Republicans,” George Keverian, a Democrat and former House speaker from Everett said. “He worked well on both sides of the aisle.”

Bly taught at New England School of Law until his retirement in 1979, the year he announced he would not seek a 17th term in the Statehouse. He continued practicing law and handling cases until this year, his son said.

“I never wanted to be an old man in the Statehouse anyway,” Bly told the Boston Herald. “I’ve seen it happen all too often and it’s tragic. People stay here because they have no place to go.”

Bly married Rita Linehan in 1947. She died in 1982. Besides his son, he leaves four grandchildren. A funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Bisbee-Porcella Funeral Home in Saugus.