Richard Henry WILDE, Congress, GA (1789-1847)

WILDE, Richard Henry, a Representative from Georgia; born in Dublin, Ireland, September 24, 1789; immigrated to the United States in 1797 with his parents, who settled in Baltimore, Md.; received a limited schooling; moved to Augusta, Ga., in 1802; engaged in mercantile pursuits; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1809 and commenced practice in Augusta; solicitor general of the superior court of Richmond County and by virtue of this office attorney general of Georgia 1811-1813; elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress (March 4, 1815-March 3, 1817); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1816 to the Fifteenth Congress; elected as a Crawford Republican to the Eighteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Thomas W. Cobb and served from February 7 to March 3, 1825; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1824 to the Nineteenth Congress and for election in 1826 to the Twentieth Congress; subsequently elected as a Jacksonian to the Twentieth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Forsyth; reelected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, and Twenty-third Congresses and served from November 17, 1827, to March 3, 1835; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1834 to the Twenty-fourth Congress; engaged in literary pursuits while traveling in Europe 1835-1840; moved to New Orleans in 1843 and continued the practice of law; professor of constitutional law in the University of Louisiana at New Orleans; died in New Orleans, La., September 10, 1847; interment in a vault in a cemetery in New Orleans; reinterred at Sand Hill family burying ground near Augusta, Ga., in 1854 and again in 1886 in the City Cemetery, Augusta, Ga.

Bibliography

Tucker, E.L. Richard Henry Wilde; His Life and Selected Poems. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1966.

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