Thomas Staples MARTIN, Congress, VA (1847-1919)

MARTIN, Thomas Staples, a Senator from Virginia; born in Scottsville, Albemarle County, Va., July 29, 1847; attended the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington 1864-1865, and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville 1865-1867; served in the Confederate army; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1869 and practiced in Albemarle County; member of the board of visitors of the Miller Manual Labor School of Albemarle County; member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1893; reelected in 1899, 1905, 1911, and 1918, and served from March 4, 1895, until his death in Charlottesville, Va., November 12, 1919; Democratic caucus chairman 1911-1913, 1917-1919; chairman, Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia (Fifty-seventh through Fifty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Appropriations (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses); interment in the University of Virginia Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Holt, Wythe W., Jr. “The Senator from Virginia and the Democratic Floor Leadership: Thomas S. Martin and Conservatism in the Progressive Era.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 83 (January 1975): 3-21; Reeves, Pascal. ”Thomas S. Martin: Committee Statesman.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 68 (July 1960): 344-64.

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