James Wilson GRIMES, Congress, IA (1816-1872)

GRIMES, James Wilson, a Senator from Iowa; born in Deering, N.H., October 20, 1816; graduated from Hampton Academy; attended Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; studied law; moved west and commenced practice in the “Black Hawk Purchase,” Wisconsin Territory, afterward the site of Burlington, Iowa; engaged in agriculture; member, Iowa Territorial House of Representatives 1838-1839, 1843-1844; Governor of Iowa 1854-1858; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1859; reelected in 1865 and served from March 4, 1859, until December 6, 1869, when he resigned due to ill health; chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses), Committee on Naval Affairs (Thirty-ninth through Forty-first Congresses); member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; died in Burlington, Iowa, February 7, 1872; interment in Aspen Grove Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Christoferson, Eli C. “The Life of James W. Grimes.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of Iowa, 1924; Roske, Ralph J. “The Seven Martyrs?” American Historical Review 64 (January 1959): 323-30.

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