Oliver Lyman SPAULDING, Congress, MI (1833-1922)

SPAULDING, Oliver Lyman, a Representative from Michigan; born in Jaffrey, Cheshire County, N.H., August 2, 1833; completed preparatory studies, and was graduated from Oberlin (Ohio) College in 1855; moved to Michigan and taught school; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1858 and commenced practice in St. Johns, Mich.; regent of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 1858-1864; during the Civil War served in the Union Army as a captain in the Twenty-third Regiment, Michigan Volunteers and promoted to colonel; resumed the practice of law in St. Johns, Mich.; secretary of state of Michigan 1866-1870; member of the Republican State committee 1871-1878; declined the position of United States district judge of the Territory of Utah in 1871; special agent of the United States Treasury Department 1875-1881; elected as a Republican to the Forty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1881-March 3, 1883); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; chairman of the commission sent to the Sandwich Islands to investigate alleged violations of the Hawaiian reciprocity treaty in 1883; again a special agent of the United States Treasury in 1885, 1889, and 1890; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1890-1893 and 1897-1903; president of the first International American Customs Congress, held in New York City in January 1903; again a special agent of the United States Treasury 1903-1909; customs agent 1909-1916; died in Washington, D.C., July 30, 1922; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

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