Clifton Rodes BRECKINRIDGE, Congress, AR (1846-1932)

BRECKINRIDGE, Clifton Rodes, (son of John Cabell Breckinridge and great-grandson of John Breckinridge), a Representative from Arkansas; born near Lexington, Ky., November 22, 1846; attended the rural schools; served in the Confederate Army and was a midshipman in the Navy; after the Civil War he attended Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), Lexington, Va., for three years; settled near Pine Bluff, Ark., in 1870 and engaged in cotton planting and in the commission business for 13 years; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1889); presented credentials as a Member-elect to the Fifty-first Congress and served from March 4, 1889, until September 5, 1890, when John M. Clayton was declared to have been duly elected, but, owing to the death of Mr. Clayton while the contest was pending, the seat was declared vacant; subsequently elected to the Fifty-first Congress to fill the vacancy thus caused; reelected to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses and served from November 4, 1890, to August 14, 1894, when he resigned to accept a consular position; unsuccessful candidate for renomination for Congress in 1894; appointed Minister to Russia by President Cleveland July 20, 1894, and served until December 13, 1897, when he returned to Pine Bluff, Ark.; member of the Dawes Commission, 1900-1905; engaged in banking at Fort Smith, Ark., serving as president of the Arkansas Valley Trust Co.; member of the State constitutional convention in 1917; was a resident of Fort Smith, Ark., until 1925, when he moved to Wendover, Leslie County, Ky., where he died on December 3, 1932; interment in Old Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Ky.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present