MALLORY, Stephen Russell, Congress, FL (1813-1873)

Senate Years of Service: 1851-1861
Party: Democrat

MALLORY, Stephen Russell, (father of Stephen Russell Mallory [1848-1907]), a Senator from Florida; born in Trinidad, West Indies, about 1813; immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Key West, Fla., in 1820; attended schools in Mobile Bay, and Nazareth, Pa.; appointed by President Andrew Jackson customs inspector at Key West in 1833; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1840 and practiced in Key West; county judge of Monroe County 1837-1845; appointed collector of the port of Key West in 1845; served in the Seminole War; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1851; reelected in 1857 and served from March 4, 1851, until his retirement on January 21, 1861, when Florida seceded; chairman, Committee on Printing (Thirty-third Congress), Committee on Naval Affairs (Thirty-fourth through Thirty-sixth Congresses); Secretary of the Navy of the Confederacy; imprisoned at the close of the Civil War 1865-1866; settled first in Lagrange, Troup County, Ga., then Pensacola, Fla.; engaged in the practice of law; died in Pensacola, Fla., November 9, 1873; interment in St. Michael’s Cemetery.

Bibliography American National Biography ; Dictionary of American Biography ; Underwood, Rodman L. Stephen Russell Mallory: A Biography of the Confederate Navy Secretary and United States Senator . Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005; Durkin, Joseph. Confederate Navy Chief . 1954. Reprint. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1987; Whitfield, James B. “Some Legal Phases of the Senatorial Contest Between David L. Yulee and Stephen R. Mallory, Sr., in 1851.” Florida Law Journal 19 (October 1945): 251-55.

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