Martin WELKER, Congress, OH (1819-1902)

WELKER, Martin, a Representative from Ohio; born in Knox County, Ohio, April 25, 1819; attended the common schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1840 and commenced practice at Millersburg, Ohio; clerk of the court of common pleas for Holmes County, 1846-1851; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Thirty-third Congress in 1852; judge of the sixth judicial district of Ohio, 1852-1857; moved to Wooster, Ohio, in 1857; Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, 1857 and 1858 on the ticket with Salmon P. Chase; declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1858; was appointed aide-de-camp, with rank of colonel, to the Governor of Ohio, August 10, 1861; judge advocate general of the State of Ohio, 1861; superintendent of drafting with rank of colonel under Governor Tod, August 15, 1862; assistant adjutant general in 1862; enlisted in the Union Army as a private in Company I, One Hundred and Eighty-eighth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, February 16, 1865; mustered out September 21, 1865; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1862 to the Thirty-eighth Congress; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first Congresses (March 4, 1865-March 3, 1871); was not a candidate for renomination to the Forty-second Congress in 1870; appointed United States judge for the northern district of Ohio by President Ulysses S. Grant, 1873 and served until 1889, when he retired; professor of political science and international law at Wooster University, 1873-1890; died on March 15, 1902, in Wooster, Ohio; interment in Wooster Cemetery.

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