Preston B. PLUMB, Congress, KS (1837-1891)

PLUMB, Preston B., a Senator from Kansas; born in Delaware County, Ohio, October 12, 1837; attended a preparatory school; learned the trade of printing and afterward purchased and edited the Xenia News; moved to Lawrence, Kans., in 1856, to support the “Free-State” movement; was one of the founders of Emporia, Kans., where he established the Kansas News in 1857; secretary of the Free-State convention in 1857; member of the Leavenworth constitutional convention in 1859; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1861; elected to the State house of representatives in 1862; reporter for the State supreme court; during the Civil War entered the Union Army in 1862 as second lieutenant, and served successively as captain, major, and lieutenant colonel; member, of the State house of representatives 1867-1868, and served as speaker in the latter year; prosecuting attorney of Lyon County; president of the Emporia National Bank in 1873; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1877; reelected in 1883 and 1888 and served from March 4, 1877, until his death; chairman, Committee on Public Lands (Forty-seventh through Fifty-second Congresses); died in Washington, D.C., December 20, 1891; interment in Maplewood Cemetery, Emporia, Lyon County, Kans.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Connelley, William E. The Life of Preston B. Plumb. Chicago: Browne and Howell Company, 1913; U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 52nd Cong., 1st sess., 1891-1892. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1892.

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