FISH, Hamilton, Congress, NY (1888-1991)

FISH, Hamilton, (son of Hamilton Fish [1849-1936], grandson of Hamilton Fish [1808-1893], and father of Hamilton Fish, Jr. [1926-1996]), a Representative from New York; born in Garrison, Putnam County, N.Y., December 7, 1888; attended St. Marks School; was graduated from Harvard University in 1910; elected as a Progressive to the New York State assembly, 1914-1916; commissioned on July 15, 1917, captain of Company K, Fifteenth New York National Guard (colored), which subsequently became the Three Hundred and Sixty-ninth Infantry; was discharged as a major on May 14, 1919; decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the American Silver Star and also cited in War Department general orders; colonel in the Officers’ Reserve Corps; delegate, Republican National Convention, 1928; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Edmund Platt; reelected to the Sixty-seventh and to the eleven succeeding Congresses and served from November 2, 1920, to January 3, 1945; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1944 to the Seventy-ninth Congress; author; was a resident of Cold Spring, N.Y., until his death there on January 18, 1991.

Bibliography Hanks, Richard K. “Hamilton Fish and American Isolationism, 1920-1944.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 1971.

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