Walter Preston BROWNLOW, Congress, TN (1851-1910)

BROWNLOW, Walter Preston, (nephew of William Gannaway Brownlow), a Representative from Tennessee; born in Abingdon, Washington County, Va., March 27, 1851; attended the common schools; employed as a telegraph messenger boy when only ten years of age; became an apprentice in the tinning business at the age of fourteen and later became a locomotive engineer; entered upon newspaper work as a reporter for the Knoxville Whig and Chronicle in 1876; in the same year purchased the Herald and Tribune in Jonesboro, Tenn.; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1880, 1884, 1896, 1900, and 1904; appointed postmaster at Jonesboro in March 1881; resigned in the following December to accept the position of Doorkeeper of the House of Representatives in the Forty-seventh Congress and served in that capacity from 1881 to 1883; member of the Republican National Committee in 1884, 1896, and 1900; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fifth and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1897, until his death; member of the Board of Managers for the National Soldiers’ Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers 1902-1910; died at the National Soldiers’ Home, Johnson City, Washington County, Tenn., July 8, 1910; interment in the Soldiers’ Home Cemetery.

Bibliography

Beeson, Helen S. “Walter P. Brownlow, Republican.” Master’s thesis, East Tennessee State University, 1967.

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