Benjamin F. Harding

Benjamin F. Harding

Benjamin Franklin Harding (born January 4, 1823 in Tunkhannock , Wyoming County , Pennsylvania , †  June 16, 1899 in Cottage Grove , Oregon ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) who represented the state of Oregon in the US Senate .

Benjamin Harding attended public schools and then studied law . He was admitted to the bar in 1847 and opened two years later a law firm in Joliet ( Illinois ). In 1850 he moved first to California , then later to the Oregon Territory .

In the same year he began a political career there and was elected to the legislature of the territory as a representative of Marion County . Two years later he was re-elected to the territorial parliament and acted as speaker there . After serving as the state attorney for the District of Oregon in 1853 as the successor to Amory Holbrook , he held the post of Territorial Secretary from 1854 to 1859, which later became Secretary of State .

Shortly before the accession of Oregon to the United States, Benjamin Harding was elected to the House of Representatives of the future state in 1858 , which only met briefly that year and only started its actual operations after joining the Union in February 1859. In 1860 Harding was re-elected as a representative of Marion County in parliament, in which he was again speaker .

Benjamin Harding entered the US Senate on September 12, 1862. He had won the by-election for the vacant seat of the late Edward Dickinson Baker ; Benjamin Stark , who was appointed his immediate successor, had not applied for the mandate. After the end of his term on March 3, 1865 Harding resigned from the Senate. He retired on his farm near Salem ; a few years later he moved to Cottage Grove, where he died in 1899.

Web links

• Benjamin F. Harding in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Benjamin F. Harding in the database of Find a Grave (English)