Robert F. Ligon

Robert Fulwood Ligon (born December 16, 1823 in Watkinsville , Oconee County , Georgia , † October 11, 1901 in Montgomery , Alabama ) was an American politician .

Robert F. Ligon, son of Robert and Wilhelmina Ligon, studied law at the University of Georgia in Athens . He was inducted into the bar in 1845 and practiced in Tuskegee , Alabama. He had settled in this city the year before. During the Mexican-American War he served in the First Alabama Battalion , where he held the rank of captain . Ligon was politically active in 1849 and 1850 as a member of the House of Representatives from Alabama and was a member of the state's Senate from 1861 to 1864 . During the Civil War he served in the Confederate Army in Company F of the Twelfth Regiment of the Alabama Infantry of the Rhodes Division. Again he held the rank of captain. After the war, Ligon resumed his legal practice.

After a failed candidacy for governor of Alabama in 1872, he was elected lieutenant governor of the state in 1874 and held the office from 1874 to 1876. With the new state constitution of 1875 this was abolished and Ligon was the last lieutenant governor of Alabama until 1901. As a Democrat , he was elected to the United States Congress, where he represented the state of Alabama in the US House of Representatives from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1879. Then Ligon retired from politics and returned to work as a lawyer. In 1884 he finished his legal career and moved to Montgomery.

Ligon, who was a Methodist and Freemason, had been married to Emily Paine since 1850. The marriage had five children.

Web links

• Robert F. Ligon in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Biography on the Alabama Department of Archives & History website