Thomas J. Word

Thomas Jefferson Word (born February 6, 1805 in Mount Airy , Surry County , North Carolina , United States , † May 25, 1890 in Palestine , Anderson County , Texas , United States) was an American politician . Between 1838 and 1839 he represented the first constituency of the state of Mississippi in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Not much is known about the life and work of Thomas Word. Born in North Carolina around 1809, he studied law and also worked in that profession. Politically, he became a member of the Whig Party . In 1832 he was a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives .

After moving to Mississippi, he settled in Pontotoc . In his new home, too, Thomas Word was politically active at both local and state levels. In the 1836 congressional elections, when both of the Mississippi State MPs were elected nationwide, there were irregularities. In those elections, Samuel Jameson Gholson and John Claiborne had been elected to the US House of Representatives. Appeals were filed against both election results and on February 5, 1838, Congress declared the elections to be invalid. As a result, new elections were scheduled, in which Thomas Word and Seargent Smith Prentiss were elected. Word was thus able to take up his mandate in Congress on May 30, 1838, which he exercised until the end of the legislative period on March 3, 1839. He was not confirmed in the next regular congressional elections. His mandate then fell to the Democrat Jacob Thompson . Together with the simultaneously elected Seargent Prentiss and Patrick W. Tompkins , who represented the third district of Mississippi in Congress between 1847 and 1849, Thomas Word was one of only three Whigs who were ever elected to the US House of Representatives for that state.

After his tenure in Congress, Thomas Word retired from politics and returned to work as a lawyer. In 1854 he moved to Anderson County , Texas . There his track is lost. His date and place of death are not known. Thomas Word was the great-great-uncle of the writer William Faulkner .

Web links

• Thomas J. Word in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Thomas J. Word in the database of Find a Grave (English)