William Henry (politician, 1788)

William Henry (born March 22, 1788 in Charlestown , Sullivan County , New Hampshire , † April 16, 1861 in Bellows Falls , Vermont ) was an American politician . Between 1847 and 1851 he represented the first constituency of the state of Vermont in the US House of Representatives .

Career

William Henry attended public schools in his homeland. He later did business in Chester, Vermont, as well as in the states of New York and New Hampshire. In 1831 he settled in Bellows Falls. There he got into banking.

Politically, Henry was a member of the Whig Party . Between 1834 and 1835 he was an MP in the Vermont House of Representatives ; In 1836 he was a member of the State Senate . In 1839 he was a delegate to the national party of the Whigs in Harrisburg ( Pennsylvania ). It was there that William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were nominated for the party's presidential and vice-presidential nominations for the 1840 election. William Henry was in the meantime also in the railroad business and was president of the railroad company Rutland and Burlington Railroad .

In 1846 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the First District of Vermont . There he took over from Solomon Foot on March 4, 1847 . After a re-election in 1848, he was able to complete two terms in Congress until March 3, 1851 . In the elections of 1852 he was defeated by Ahiman Louis Miner .

After the end of his time in Congress, Henry returned to his private interests, particularly banking. After the Whigs dissolved, he became a member of the newly formed Republican Party . In 1860, he was one of the Republican electors in the presidential election who officially voted Abraham Lincoln president. William Henry died a few months later in Bellows Falls in April 1861. He was buried in Chester.

Web links

• William Henry in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• William Henry in the database of Find a Grave (English)