William Wallace WILSHIRE, Congress, AR (1830-1888)

WILSHIRE, William Wallace, a Representative from Arkansas; born in Shawneetown, Gallatin County, Ill., on September 8, 1830; educated in the country schools; spent three years in California in gold mining, from 1852 to 1855, when he returned to his home in Port Byron and engaged in the coal mining and mercantile business; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1859; entered the Union Army as major in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served from July 16, 1862, to July 16, 1864, when he resigned his commission on account of ill health; after the war located in Little Rock, Ark., and commenced the practice of law; appointed solicitor general of the State in 1867; chief justice of the State supreme court from 1868 to 1871, when he resigned and resumed the practice of law; presented credentials as a Republican Member-elect to the Forty-third Congress and served from March 4, 1873, to June 16, 1874, when he was succeeded by Thomas M. Gunter, who contested his election; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1875-March 3, 1877); was not a candidate for renomination in 1876; engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D.C., where he died August 19, 1888; interment in Mount Holly Cemetery, Little Rock, Ark.

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