Francis THOMAS, Congress, MD (1799-1876)

THOMAS, Francis, a Representative from Maryland; born in that part of Frederick County, Md., close to South Mountain, known as Merryland tract, February 3, 1799; attended St. John’s College, Annapolis, Md.; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1820 and commenced practice in Frankville, Md.; member of the Maryland state house of delegates in 1822, 1827, and 1829, and served the last year as speaker; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Congresses and as a Democrat to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1831-March 3, 1841); chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Naval Affairs (Twenty-sixth Congress); president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Co. in 1839 and 1840; Governor of Maryland 1841-1844; was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection as Governor in 1844; member of the Maryland State Constitutional convention in 1850; elected as a Unionist to the Thirty-seventh Congress, as an Unconditional Unionist to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, and as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1869); served as a delegate to the Loyalist Convention at Philadelphia in 1866; collector of internal revenue 1870-1872; United States Minister to Peru from March 25, 1872, to July 9, 1875; retired from public and professional life and devoted his time to agricultural pursuits; was killed by a locomotive while walking on the railroad tracks near Frankville, Md., January 22, 1876; interment in a vault in Rose Hill Cemetery, Cumberland, Md.

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