Henry Richard GIBSON, Congress, TN (1837-1938)

GIBSON, Henry Richard, (cousin of Charles Hopper Gibson), a Representative from Tennessee; born on Kent Island, Queen Annes County, Md., December 24, 1837; attended the common schools on Kent Island and at Bladensburg, Md.; was graduated from Decker’s Academy at Bladensburg in 1858 and from Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y., in 1862; served in the commissary department of the Union Army from March 1863 to July 1865; entered Albany (N.Y.) Law School in September 1865; was admitted to the bar in December 1865 and commenced practice in Knoxville, Tenn., in January 1866; moved to Jacksboro, Campbell County, Tenn., in October 1866; appointed commissioner of claims by Gov. William G. Brownlow in 1868; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1870; member of the State senate, 1871-1875; member of the State house of representatives, 1875-1877; returned to Knoxville in 1876; founded the Knoxville Republican in 1879 and became its editor; appointed post-office inspector in 1881; became editor of the Knoxville Daily Chronicle in 1882; appointed United States pension agent at Knoxville on June 22, 1883, and served until June 9, 1885; chancellor of the second chancery division of Tennessee 1886-1894; professor of medical jurisprudence in the Tennessee Medical College 1889-1906; author of “Gibson’s Suits in Chancery” in 1891; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1905); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1904; associate editor in 1896 and associate reviser in 1918 of the “Code of Tennessee”; retired from public life and resided in Washington, D.C., being engaged as a writer and author and as a consulting editor of the American and English Encyclopedia of Law and Practice; died in Washington, D.C., May 25, 1938; remains were cremated and the ashes deposited in the Old Gray Cemetery, Knoxville, Tenn.

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