Nathan Goff

Nathan Goff

Nathan Goff Jr. (born February 9, 1843 in Clarksburg , Virginia ; † April 24, 1920 ibid) was an American lawyer and politician ( Republican Party ), who served as Minister of the Navy in the cabinet of US President Rutherford B. Hayes and represented the state of West Virginia in both houses of Congress .

Life

Goff was born in Clarksburg, which later became part of the new state of West Virginia. He attended private school there before studying at Georgetown University in Washington and graduating from City University of New York with a law degree . After the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, Goff joined the Union Army . He served in a Virginia infantry regiment ; he later became a major in the West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry . After the war ended, Goff became a member of the bar and opened a law firm.

Public offices

Nathan Goff's name quickly became better known in West Virginia politics. From 1867 to 1868 he sat in the State House of Representatives . This was followed by a tenure as federal attorney for West Virginia that lasted until 1881 . He resigned after President Hayes appointed him to his cabinet as Secretary of the Navy . Goff succeeded Richard W. Thompson , who had resigned , but only held the post for two months until the end of Hayes' presidency on March 4, 1881.

He subsequently worked again as a federal attorney, but returned to Washington in 1882 after he had been elected to the US House of Representatives as a representative of his state . Two previous attempts in 1870 and 1874 had failed, as had his attempt to be elected governor of West Virginia in the year. Goff was re-elected twice, but renounced a new nomination in 1888 because he ran - again unsuccessfully - for governor, so that he had to leave Congress on March 3, 1889.

From 1892 to 1913, Nathan Goff held the position of judge at the Federal Court of Appeals for the fourth district before he became politically active again. In 1912 he was elected to the US Senate ; however, he took up his post on April 1, 1913 with a month's delay, as he initially wanted to fulfill his duties as a judge. He remained in the Senate until March 3, 1919 and waived a renewed candidacy. The following year, Goff passed away as the last living member of the Hayes government in his hometown of Clarksburg.

Appreciation

The destroyer USS Goff (DD-247) used in World War II was named after the brief naval minister.

family

On November 7, 1865, Goff married Laura Ellen Despard (1842-1918). They had two sons, Guy D. Goff , who was a US Senate member from 1925 to 1931 (his daughter Louise Goff Reece was a US House of Representatives from 1961 to 1963) and Dr. Waldo Percy Goff (1870-1922), whose wife, Caroline Woods Bassel, was a sister of Ellen Bassel Davis, the second wife of the 1924 US presidential candidate John W. Davis .

Web links

• Nathan Goff in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Nathan Goff in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)