Adonijah Welch

Adonijah Strong Welch ( born April 12, 1821 in East Hampton, Connecticut, † March 14, 1889 in Pasadena, California ) was an American politician ( Republican), who represented the state of Florida in the U.S. Senate.

At the age of 18 years Adonijah Welch left his native State of Connecticut, and settled in Jonesville (Michigan). In 1846 he graduated from the University of Michigan then, the following year he was admitted to the Bar Association. But he was not working as a lawyer, but in 1849 the director of a high school. In the same year he was lured by the gold rush to California for some time. In 1851 he became the first director of the Michigan State Normal School, which later became the Eastern Michigan University was; this position he held until 1865.

This year, Welch moved for health reasons to Florida, where he first lived in Pensacola and later in Jacksonville. There he ran a sawmill and worked in Orange cultivation. After his first wife died in 1867, he married the following year Mary Beaumont Dudley, with whom he had two children.

In the course of Reconstruction after the Civil War Florida was admitted as one of the defeated southern states in 1868, again in the Union and could provide members of the U.S. Senate in Washington again. Choosing decided Thomas W. Osborn and Adonijah Welch for themselves, the latter renounced the Congress only on 17 June 1868 to the March 3, 1869 and belonged to a bid again.

He preferred to assume the office of the first president of the Iowa State Agricultural College, which he held from 1869 to 1883. After his resignation, he remained the university as a lecturer in psychology obtained. Welch died at his summer residence Pasadena.

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