George Laird SHOUP, Congress, ID (1836-1904)

SHOUP, George Laird, (great-grandfather of Richard Gardner Shoup), a Senator from Idaho; born in Kittanning, Armstrong County, Pa., June 15, 1836; attended the public schools of Freeport and Slate Lick; moved to Illinois in 1852; engaged in agricultural pursuits and stock raising near Galesburg, Ill., until 1858; moved to Colorado in 1859; engaged in mining and mercantile pursuits until 1861; during the Civil War enlisted in an independent company of scouts and soon thereafter was commissioned a second lieutenant; scouted throughout New Mexico and Colorado and on the Canadian, Pecos, Arkansas and Red Rivers; promoted to first lieutenant; given leave of absence to attend the convention to prepare a constitution for the proposed State of Colorado in 1864; returned to active duty, commissioned colonel, and mustered out in Denver in 1864; engaged in mercantile pursuits in Virginia City, Mont., in 1866 and later in Salmon City, Idaho; Lemhi county treasurer and superintendent of schools; member, Territorial house of representatives 1874; member, Territorial council 1878; member of the Republican National Committee 1880-1884, 1888-1892; United States commissioner for Idaho at the World’s Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, La., in 1884 and 1885; Governor of Idaho Territory 1889-1890; upon the admission of Idaho as a State into the Union was elected its first Governor, October 1, 1890, but resigned in December of that year, having been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1890; reelected in 1895 and served from December 18, 1890, to March 3, 1901; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1900; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Fifty-fourth Congress), Committee on Territories (Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth Congresses); died in Boise, Idaho, December 21, 1904; interment in the Masonic Cemetery.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Crowder, David L. “Pioneer Sketch: George Laird Shoup.” Idaho Yesterdays 33 (Winter 1990): 2-8; U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses at Erection of Statue. 61st Cong., 2nd sess., 1909-1910. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910.

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