American politician
Thomas Updegraff
(April 3, 1834 ? October 4, 1910) was an American attorney, politician, and five-term
Republican
member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from northeastern
Iowa
. His two periods of service were separated by ten years out of Congress.
Biography
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Family background
[
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]
Thomas Updegraff, a descendant of the Dutch
[1]
and German
Op den Graeff
family, was born in
Tioga County, Pennsylvania
. He was a son of William Updegraff (1798-1846) and his wife Rachel Smith (1800-1869) and grandson of Thomas Updegraff (
York County
, Province of Pennsylvania, 1774-
Williamsport
, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 1857),
Quaker
, Businessman, and agent for the
Underground Railroad
Station. His great-grandfather Abraham Updegraff (1746-1781) served as a
private
in the
Pennsylvania Militia
in 1760. Through Abrahams father Herman Updegraff (1711-1758) and grandfather Isaac Updegraff (1680-1745) they were direct descendants of
Abraham op den Graeff
(father of Isaac), one of the founders of
Germantown
and in 1688 signer of the
first protest against slavery
in colonial America and of his grandfather
Herman op den Graeff
,
mennonite
leader of
Krefeld
.
[2]
Early life
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Thomas Updegraff attended the
University of Notre Dame
, then moved to Iowa. He was the clerk of the district court of
Clayton County, Iowa
, from 1856 to 1860. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1860 and commenced practice in
McGregor, Iowa
.
Family
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In 1858, Updegraff married Laura A. Platt of
Huron County, Ohio
.
[3]
She died in 1865,
and he later married Florence Haight. They were the parents of two daughters, Elizabeth and Rachel.
Political career
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In 1878 he began to serve as a member of the
Iowa House of Representatives
.
[5]
In
November of the same year
, he was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from
Iowa's 3rd congressional district
, which was then made up of the seven counties in Iowa's northeastern corner.
[6]
Two years later
he was re-elected to a second term. The following year the
Iowa General Assembly
reapportioned the congressional districts to accommodate the addition of two additional seats, placing Updegraff's home county in a reconfigured
4th congressional district
.
[6]
He won the Republican Party's nomination in 1882.
[7]
However,
in the general election
he was defeated by
Luman Hamlin Weller
of the
United States Greenback Party
. Updegraff had served Iowa's 3rd congressional district from March 4, 1879 to March 3, 1883.
Returning to Iowa, Updegraff was a member of the McGregor Board of Education, and the city solicitor. He was a delegate to the
1888 Republican National Convention
.
In
1892
, he again ran for Congress in Iowa's 4th district, winning not only the Republican nomination but also the general election (where he defeated incumbent
Democrat
Walter Halben Butler
). He was re-elected to two more terms. However, in 1898, he was defeated in his bid for the Republican nomination by
Gilbert N. Haugen
, who would go on to serve seventeen consecutive terms. In all, Updegraff served the 4th congressional district from March 4, 1893 to March 3, 1899.
After Congress
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Updegraff then returned to McGregor to resume the practice of law. He died in McGregor, and was interred there in Pleasant Grove Cemetery.
References
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]
- ^
Prof. William I. Hull: William Penn and the Dutch Quaker Migration to Pennsylvania (2018)
- ^
History of the Op Den Graef/Updegraff Family, by June Shaull Lutz, 1988 (Original at University of Wisconsin - Madison)
- ^
Price, Realto E. (1916).
History of Clayton County, Iowa
. Vol. 1. Chicago, IL: Robert O. Law Company. p. 408.
- ^
"Representative Thomas Updegraff"
. Iowa General Assembly
. Retrieved
May 15,
2024
.
- ^
a
b
"
Iowa congressional district maps, 1847-2013
Archived
2008-06-30 at the
Wayback Machine
," accessed 2009-04-17.
- ^
"
Congressional Nominations
," New York Times, 1882-07-28 at p. 5.
External links
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