John Steele HENDERSON, Congress, NC (1846-1916)

HENDERSON, John Steele, a Representative from North Carolina; born near Salisbury, Rowan County, N.C., January 6, 1846; attended a private school in Melville, N.C.; entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in January 1862 and left in November 1864 to enter the Confederate Army as a private in Company B, Tenth Regiment, North Carolina State Troops; served throughout the Civil War; was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1865 without reentering; studied law; obtained a county court license in June 1866 and a superior court license in June 1867; appointed in June 1866 register of deeds for Rowan County and served until September 1868, when he resigned; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1875; member of the State house of representatives in 1876; served in the State senate in 1878; elected by the general assembly in 1881 one of the three commissioners to codify the statute laws of the State; elected presiding justice of the inferior court of Rowan County in June 1884; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1895); chairman, Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads (Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses); resumed the practice of law in Salisbury, N.C.; elected to the State senate in 1900 and 1902; member of the board of aldermen in 1900; died in Salisbury, N.C., on October 9, 1916; interment in Chestnut Hill Cemetery.

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