Joseph Jefferson MANSFIELD, Congress, TX (1861-1947)

MANSFIELD, Joseph Jefferson, a Representative from Texas; born in Wayne, Wayne County, Va. (now West Virginia), February 9, 1861; attended the public schools; moved to Alleyton, Tex., in 1881; employed as a farm and nursery laborer and later as a baggage-master and freight clerk with the Southern Pacific Railway; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1886 and commenced practice at Eagle Lake, Tex.; also established the first newspaper in that city; organized two companies of the National Guard of Texas in 1886; received commissions successively as second lieutenant, first lieutenant, and captain, and was appointed adjutant of the Fourth Texas Regiment with the rank of captain; prosecuting attorney of Eagle Lake, Tex., in 1888; mayor in 1889; prosecuting attorney of Colorado County 1892-1896; ex officio county superintendent of schools 1896-1910; judge of Colorado County 1896-1916; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-fifth and to the fifteen succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1917, until his death in Bethesda, Md., July 12, 1947; chairman, Committee on Rivers and Harbors (Seventy-second through Seventy ninth Congresses); interment in Masonic Cemetery, Eagle Lake, Tex.

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