Charles Voorhees

Charles Stewart Voorhees, (son of Daniel Wolsey Voorhees), a Delegate from the Territory of Washington; born in Covington, Fountain County, Ind., June 4, 1853; attended Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind., and was graduated from Georgetown College, Washington, D.C., June 26, 1873; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1875 and commenced practice in Terre Haute, Ind.; moved to the Territory of Washington in 1882 and settled in Colfax; prosecuting attorney for Whitman County 1882-1885; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1888; resumed the practice of law in Colfax, Wash.; moved to Spokane, Wash., and continued the practice of law until his death there December 26, 1909; interment in Greenwood Cemetery.

Henry Smith Van Eaton

Henry Smith Van Eaton was a Representative from Mississippi; born in Anderson Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, September 14, 1826; was graduated from Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill., in 1848; moved to Woodville, Miss., in 1848; taught school; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1855 and commenced practice in Woodville, Wilkinson County; elected district attorney in 1857; member of the State house of representatives in 1859; enlisted in the Confederate Army and served throughout the Civil War; resumed the practice of law in Woodville, Miss., in 1865; appointed chancellor of the tenth Mississippi district in 1880; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1887); appointed by President Cleveland a member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1887; member of a commission to examine and report upon the last completed portion of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1888; died in Woodville, Miss., May 30, 1898; interment in Evergreen Cemetery.

John Blackwell Hale

John Blackwell Hale was a Representative from Missouri; born in Brooks (now Hancock) County, Va. (now West Virginia), February 27, 1831; attended the common schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1849 and commenced practice in Brunswick, Mo.; member of the State house of representatives 1856-1858; presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of Douglas and Johnson in 1860; colonel of the Sixty-fifth Regiment, Missouri Militia, and of the Fourth Provisional Regiment, Missouri Militia, in the United States service during the Civil War; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1864 and 1868; member of the Missouri constitutional convention in 1875; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1887); unsuccessful candidate for renomination on the Democratic ticket and defeated for reelection as an Independent; resumed the practice of law; died in Carrollton, Mo., on February 1, 1905; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery.

W.M Beckner

Honorable W.M Beckner was a Representative from Kentucky; born in Moorefield, Nichols County, Ky., June 19, 1841. He attended the public schools and then on to Rand and Richeson Seminary, Maysville, Ky., and Centre College, Danville, Ky.. He worked on a farm and was subsequently a clerk in a country store at Bethel, Bath County, Ky.. Beckner became a private tutor and taught school for two years in Orangeburg and Maysville; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1864 and commenced practice in Winchester, Ky.; city judge in 1865; served as prosecuting attorney in 1866 and 1867; was elected judge of Clark County in 1870; established the Clark County Democrat in 1867, which he owned and edited for a number of years; appointed State prison commissioner in 1880; served as State railroad commissioner from 1882 until 1884, when he resigned; president of the interstate educational conventions held in Louisville in 1883 and 1885; member of the State constitutional convention in 1890; member of the State house of representatives in 1893; chairman of the Democratic State convention in 1893; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Marcus C. Lisle and served from December 3, 1894, to March 3, 1895; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1894; resumed the practice of law; died in Winchester, Ky., March 14, 1910; interment in Winchester Cemetery.

Honorable William Benjamin Baker

Honorable William Benjamin Baker was a Representative from Maryland; born near Aberdeen, Harford County, Md., July 22, 1840; attended the common schools and was privately tutored; engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1872, when he became interested in the canning industry, and later in banking; delegate to several State and congressional conventions; member of the State house of delegates in 1881; served in the State senate in 1893; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, and Fifty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1901); was not a candidate for renomination in 1900; resumed the canning business; died in Aberdeen, Md., May 17, 1911; interment in Baker's Cemetery.

William Carlile Arnold

Honorable William Carlile Arnold was a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in Luthersburg, Clearfield County, Pa., July 15, 1851; attended the public schools and Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.; studied law; was admitted to the bar in Clearfield County, Pa., June 18, 1875, and practiced in Curwensville and Du Bois, Clearfield County, Pa.; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1899); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1898 to the Fifty-sixth Congress; resumed the practice of law in Clearfield County, Pa.; died in Muskegon, Mich., while on a business trip to that city, March 20, 1906; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Curwensville, Pa.

Albert Seaton Berry

Honorable Albert Seaton Berry was a Representative from Kentucky; born in Fairfield (now Dayton), Campbell County, Ky., May 13, 1836; attended the public schools; was graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1855 and from the Cincinnati Law School in 1858; was admitted to the bar and practiced; prosecuting attorney of Newport, Ky., in 1859; served in the Confederate Army throughout the Civil War; mayor of Newport in 1870 and served five terms; member of the State senate in 1878 and 1884; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1901); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1900; resumed the practice of law; appointed and subsequently elected judge of the seventeenth judicial district of Kentucky and served from 1905 until his death in Newport, Campbell County, Ky., January 6, 1908; interment in Evergreen Cemetery.

Melville Bull

Honorable Melville Bull was a Representative from Rhode Island; born in Newport, R.I., September 29, 1854; attended Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H., and was graduated from Harvard University in 1877; engaged in agricultural pursuits near Newport; member of the State house of representatives 1883-1885; served in the State senate 1885-1892; member of the Republican State central committee; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1888; Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island 1892-1894; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1903); chairman, Committee on Accounts (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1902 to the Fifty-eighth Congress; lived in Middletown, Newport County, R.I., until his death July 5, 1909; interment in Island Cemetery, Newport, R.I.

James Perry Conner

Honorable James Perry Conner was a Representative from Iowa; born in Delaware County, Ind., January 27, 1851; attended the Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, and was graduated from the law department of the University of Iowa at Iowa City in 1873; was admitted to the bar and practiced; district attorney of the thirteenth judicial district of Iowa 1880-1884; circuit judge of the thirteenth judicial district in 1884; district judge of the sixteenth judicial district in 1886; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1892; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Jonathan P. Dolliver; reelected to the Fifty-seventh and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from December 4, 1900, to March 3, 1909; unsuccessful candidate in 1908 for reelection to the Sixty-first Congress; resumed the practice of law in Denison, Crawford County, Iowa, where he died March 19, 1924; interment in Oakland Cemetery.

Reese Calhoun De GraffenreId

Honorable Reese Calhoun De GraffenreId was a Representative from Texas; born in Franklin, Williamson County, Tenn., May 7, 1859; attended the common schools of Franklin and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; was graduated from the law department of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn.; was admitted to the bar in 1879 and commenced practice in Franklin; moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., where he practiced his profession for one year, moving thence to Texas; helped in the construction of the Texas & Pacific Railroad; resumed the practice of law at Longview, Tex., in 1883; elected county attorney and resigned two months afterward; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1890 to the Fifty-second Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, and Fifty-seventh Congresses and served from March 4, 1897, until his death in Washington, D.C., August 29, 1902; interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Longview, Gregg County, Tex.

John Hipple Mitchell

John Hipple Mitchell was an American lawyer, politician, and convicted criminal. He served as a Republican United States Senator from Oregon on three occasions between 1873 and 1905. He also served as president of the state senate, did the initial legal work involved in the dispute that led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Pennoyer v. Neff, and later was involved with the Oregon land fraud scandal, for which he was indicted and convicted while a sitting U.S. Senator. He is one of twelve U.S. Senators indicted while in office, and one of five convicted.

He was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, with the name John Mitchell Hipple. He moved with his parents to Butler County, Pennsylvania, at the age of two. He attended public schools during much of his childhood, but also attended some private schools including the Witherspoon Institute. As a young man, he was a schoolteacher. He seduced a 15-year-old female student, and, due to the resulting scandal, was forced to marry her.

In 1857, Mitchell stopped teaching and decided to become a lawyer. He built a successful law practice in Pennsylvania. However, in 1860, he decided to leave his community and family and moved to California with a local schoolteacher with whom he was having an affair. After arriving in California, he abandoned her and moved to Portland, Oregon. It was then that he decided to change his name to John Hipple Mitchell, using his middle name as his last name, and attempted to start a completely new life in Oregon. Almost immediately, he started to become a successful lawyer and build political connections. Mitchell was not an intellectual man, but he was very ambitious and knew how to develop business and political friendships with important people. In 1867, he was hired as a professor at Willamette University School of Medicine to teach medical jurisprudence. Mitchell remained as a professor for almost four years.

Two years after arriving in Oregon, in 1862, he was elected to the Oregon State Senate. In 1864 he became President of the state Senate and served in that position until 1866. Because United States Senators were elected by the state legislatures during his lifetime, and that was the only office that Mitchell was to seek, this early position in the state Senate was the only popularly elected office that he would ever run for or win.

Mitchell was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate from Oregon in 1866, losing to Henry W. Corbett. He tried again in 1872 and this time won, taking office in 1873. He petitioned to officially change his name after he was elected.

On the topic of names, during Mitchell's second period of Senate service (from November 18, 1885, to March 3, 1897), he concurrently served alongside two other different individuals named "John Mitchell", from other states. From November 18, 1885, to March 3, 1887, Mitchell served alongside Sen. John I. Mitchell from Pennsylvania; and from March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1897, Mitchell served alongside Sen. John L. Mitchell from Wisconsin.

By this time, he had married again, but had not divorced the woman he had married in Pennsylvania. His opponents tried to block him from becoming a senator by asking a Senate committee to expel him for what he had done in the past, charging him with bigamy, desertion and living under an assumed name. Though these charges were certainly true, the Senate Committee decided they were not relevant. Mitchell served in the Senate from 1873 to 1879, and was defeated for reelection. He ran for reelection to the Senate in 1882 but lost. In 1885, however, he was elected again to the Senate, and reelected in 1890.

Mitchell sought reelection by the Oregon Legislature in 1897, but his candidacy proved to be highly divisive: the resulting scandal prevented the 19th Oregon Legislative Assembly from organizing and, consequently, left Oregon with a vacant U.S. Senate seat for nearly two years. Joseph Simon was ultimately chosen for the seat.

While not in the Senate, Mitchell practiced law. Mitchell's last term in the Senate began in 1901 and was to last until 1907, but Mitchell died before it expired.

Mitchell was devoted to business interests and was against the populists and their political reforms. In the Senate, he was interested in transportation issues. He was chairman of the committee on railroads from 1877 to 1879 and from 1889 to 1893, and chairman of several committees related to coastlines and the ocean during his terms in the Senate. He was also chairman of the committee on claims from 1891 to 1893 and chairman of the committee of elections and privileges from 1895 to 1897.

In 1905, Mitchell was indicted in the Oregon land fraud scandal, involving his use of political influence in the federal government to help clients with their land claims. He was convicted. An appeal of the conviction was underway and the Senate was beginning proceedings to expel him when Mitchell died of an illness in Portland, Oregon.

He was buried at River View Cemetery in Portland.

Article: John H. Mitchell. (2022, January 1). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Mitchell

Judson Harmon

Judson Harmon (February 3, 1846 – February 22, 1927) was a Democratic politician from Ohio. He served as United States Attorney General under President Grover Cleveland and later served as the 45th Governor of Ohio.

Harmon was born in Newtown, Ohio and named after Adoniram Judson, the famed American Baptist foreign missionary. His parents were Benjamin Franklin Harmon and Julia Brunson, a native of Olean, New York. His ancestors on both sides of his family were English and included men who served in the Colonial Wars and in the American Revolutionary War, including Cornelius Brooks and his father James Brooks.

Judson was a distant relative of Frances Folsom, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, through her mother Emma Harmon.

Harmon graduated from Denison University in 1866. He graduated from the Cincinnati Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1869. Harmon was elected judge of the Common Pleas Court in 1876 but left months later to run unsuccessfully for the State Senate. He was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati in 1878 and served until he resigned in 1887 to resume the practice of law.

Attorney General
He was appointed Attorney General by President Cleveland on June 8, 1895 upon the elevation of Richard Olney to become United States Secretary of State. Harmon served out the remainder of Cleveland's second term in office. Shortly after his appointment, Harmon urged Congress to fix some of the weaknesses in the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harmon also issued the most explicit statement of what became known as the American doctrine of absolute sovereignty, "the rules, principles and precedents of international law impose no liability or obligation upon the United States" in a case involving a claim by Mexico for damages from diverting the waters of the Rio Grande.

Governor Harmon in 1911
Harmon was elected as Ohio governor in 1908. In 1910, Harmon was re-elected for a second term as governor, this time defeating future President of the United States Warren G. Harding.

Presidential candidate
In June 1912, Harmon led the Ohio delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. There, Harmon was nominated as a candidate for the presidency. That was largely as a favorite son of the State of Ohio, Harmon found support from elsewhere and on the first ballot of the Convention, and he received the votes of 148 delegates. However, since no candidate received the necessary two thirds of the votes, balloting continued.

By the time of the 26th ballot, no candidate had yet received the nomination for president, and Harmon's support had dwindled to a mere 29 votes, as the Convention tended to coalesce around the two leading candidates: Speaker of the House of Representatives Champ Clark of Missouri and New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson. Balloting continued until the 39th ballot, when the support of William Jennings Bryan helped Wilson obtain the votes necessary to become the nominee.

Retirement
Following the convention, Harmon returned home to Ohio to serve out the rest of his term as governor of the state. Accordingly, Harmon left office in January 1913, upon completion of this second term.

Family
In 1870 Judson married Olivia Scobey, the daughter of a leading physician in Hamilton. They had three daughters.

Edward Henry

Honorable Edward Henry was the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1907 to 1913.

He was previously the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1905 to 1907; the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1903 to 1905; the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1901 to 1903; the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1899 to 1901; and the representative for Connecticut’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1895 to 1899.

Frank Hiscock

Honorable Frank Hiscock was a Representative and a Senator from New York; born in Pompey, Onondaga County, N.Y., September 6, 1834; graduated from Pompey Academy; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1855 and commenced practice in Tully, Onondaga County; district attorney of Onondaga County 1860-1863; member of the State constitutional convention in 1867; elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1877, until his resignation on March 3, 1887, at the close of the Forty-ninth Congress, having been elected Senator; chairman, Committee on Appropriations (Forty-seventh Congress); elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1887, to March 3, 1893; unsuccessful candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Organization, Conduct, and Expenditures of Executive Departments (Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses); resumed the practice of law in Syracuse, N.Y.; died in Syracuse, N.Y., June 18, 1914; interment in Oakwood Cemetery

Charles Dougherty

Honorable Charles Dougherty, a Representative from Florida; born in Athens, Ga., October 15, 1850; attended the public schools of Athens and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville; followed the sea; moved to Florida in 1871 and settled near Port Orange; engaged in planting; member of the State house of representatives 1877-1885, and served as speaker in 1879; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses; (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); resumed agricultural pursuits; again a member of the State house of representatives in 1891, 1892, 1911, and 1912; served in the State senate 1895-1898; died at Daytona Beach, Volusia County, Fla., on October 11, 1915; interment in Pinewood Cemetery.

Albert Cole Hopkins

Honorable Albert Cole Hopkins was a Representative from Pennsylvania; born in Villanovia, near Jamestown, Chautauqua County, N.Y., September 15, 1837; attended the public schools; was graduated from Alfred University, Alfred, N.Y.; taught school; engaged in mercantile pursuits in Troy, Pa., where he remained until 1867; moved to Lock Haven, Clinton County, Pa., and engaged in the lumber business; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4, 1891-March 3, 1895); was not a candidate for renomination in 1894; resumed lumber manufacturing pursuits; State forestry commissioner 1899-1904; died in Lock Haven, Pa., June 9, 1911; interment in Highland Cemetery.

William Maury

A Harvard educated lawyer and politician, William Maury served as the United States Assistant Attorney General from 1889 to 1893. He wrote procedural handbooks in preparation for law students to learn the jurisdictional requirements under the Judiciary Act of 1891, which established nine courts of appeals, one for each judicial circuit at the time.