Isaac Newton ARNOLD, Congress, IL (1815-1884)

ARNOLD, Isaac Newton, a Representative from Illinois; born in Hartwick, Otsego County, N.Y., November 30, 1815; attended the district and select schools and Hartwick Seminary; taught school in Otsego County 1832-1835; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1835 and commenced practice in Cooperstown, Otsego County, N.Y.; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1836 and continued the practice of law; was elected as city clerk of Chicago in 1837, but had served only a short time when he resigned to devote his entire efforts to his law practice; delegate to the Democratic State convention in 1842; member of the State house of representatives in 1842 and 1843; presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1844; delegate to the Free-Soil National Convention at Buffalo in 1848; again a member of the State house of representatives in 1855 and was an unsuccessful candidate for speaker; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination to Congress in 1858; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1865); chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Thirty-eighth Congress); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1864; during the Civil War acted as aide to Colonel Hunter at the Battle of Bull Run; served as Sixth Auditor of the United States Treasury, Washington, D.C., from April 29, 1865, to September 29, 1866, when he resigned; resumed the practice of law and also engaged in literary pursuits; died in Chicago, Ill., April 24, 1884; interment in Graceland Cemetery.

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