Thomas Butler (politician)

Thomas Butler

Thomas Butler (born April 14, 1785 in Carlisle , Pennsylvania , †  August 7, 1847 in St. Louis , Missouri ) was an American politician . Between 1818 and 1821 he represented the state of Louisiana in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Thomas Butler attended the public schools in his native Pennsylvania and a college in Pittsburgh . After a subsequent law degree and his admission as a lawyer in 1806, he began to work in Pittsburgh in his new profession. Butler moved to the Mississippi Territory around 1807 . There he was admitted to the bar in 1808. In his new home, Butler became captain of the territorial militia in 1810. In 1811, Butler moved to West Feliciana Parish in the Orleans Territory . There he ran a cotton and a sugar plantation. In 1812 he was appointed district judge. A year later he became a judge in the third judicial district of the now established state of Louisiana. Politically, Butler was a member of the Democratic Republican Party at the time .

After the resignation of Congressman Thomas B. Robertson , Butler was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC when he was due for the by-election for the first legislative mandate from Louisiana , where he took up his new mandate on November 16, 1818. Since he was confirmed in the regular congressional elections of 1818, he could remain in Congress until March 3, 1821 . For the elections of 1820, he was not nominated by his party for another legislative period.

In 1822 and 1840, Thomas Butler was a brief judge in the Louisiana Third Judicial District. He became a member of the Whig Party in the 1830s and later joined the short-lived American Party . Butler also served on the boards of trustees of Louisiana College and the Louisiana Historical Society . In the years after leaving the US House of Representatives, he managed his plantations and worked as a lawyer. In 1844 he was offered a new candidacy for Congress. He refused this for health reasons.

Thomas Butler died on August 7, 1847 in St. Louis and was buried on his plantation "The Cottage" in West Feliciana Parish. He was married to Ann Ellis Butler (1796-1878), with whom he had seven children.

Web links

• Thomas Butler in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Thomas Butler in the database of Find a Grave (English)