Joseph Showalter Smith

Joseph Showalter Smith

Joseph Showalter Smith (born June 20, 1824 in Connellsville , Pennsylvania , †  July 13, 1884 in Portland , Oregon ) was an American politician . Between 1869 and 1871 he represented the state of Oregon in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Joseph Smith attended the public schools in his home country. In the spring of 1844 he moved over the Oregon Trail to what would later become the Oregon Territory , where he worked as a teacher in Salem . Smith studied law in his new home. In 1853 he moved to Olympia in what is now Washington State .

Smith became a member of the Democratic Party . In 1856 he was elected to the Washington Territory House of Representatives, where he was President of the House. Between 1857 and 1858 he was a federal attorney in the Washington Territory. In 1858 he returned to Salem. For the next eleven years he worked there as a lawyer.

In 1866 he applied unsuccessfully for a seat in the US Senate . In the congressional election of 1868 Joseph Smith was elected to the US House of Representatives for the state of Oregon, where he replaced Rufus Mallory on March 4, 1869 . He only exercised his mandate for one legislative period until March 3, 1871. After his tenure in Congress ended , Smith moved to Portland where he worked as a lawyer. In 1882 he ran for governor of Oregon. But he was defeated by the Republican Zenas Ferry Moody . Smith died two years later and was buried in Portland.

Web links

• Joseph Showalter Smith in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Joseph Showalter Smith in the database of Find a Grave (English)