William Lewis Dewart

William Lewis Dewart ( born June 21, 1821 in Sunbury, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, † April 19, 1888 ) was an American politician. Between 1857 and 1859 he represented the State of Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

William Dewart attended the common schools and in Harrisburg. After he graduated from the Dickinson Preparatory School in Carlisle and in 1839 the Princeton College. After a subsequent law studies and his 1843 was admitted to a lawyer, he began in Sunbury to work in this profession. At the same time he proposed as a member of the Democratic Party launched a political career. From 1845 to 1846 he was mayor of Sunbury. He also headed the local school board. In the years 1852, 1856, 1860 and 1884, he participated as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions. In 1854, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress yet.

In the congressional elections of 1856 Dewart in the eleventh electoral district of Pennsylvania was in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of James Hepburn Campbell on March 4, 1857. Since he his predecessor Campbell defeated in 1858, he was able to complete only one term in Congress until March 3, 1859. This was marked by the events leading up to the Civil War. During his time as a congressman Dewart Chairman of the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business.

After the end of his time in the U.S. House of Representatives, he practiced as a lawyer again in Sunbury, where he died on April 19, 1888.