Albert S. Willis

Albert Shelby Willis ( born January 22, 1843 in Shelbyville, Shelby County, Kentucky; † January 6, 1897 in Honolulu, Hawaii ) was an American politician. Between 1877 and 1887 he represented the state of Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Albert Willis attended the public schools of his home, including the Louisville Male High School, where he graduated in 1860. During the next four years he taught himself as a teacher. After a subsequent law studies at the Louisville Law School and was admitted as an attorney of his 1866 he began to practice in this profession in Louisville. Between 1874 and 1877 he was a prosecutor in Jefferson County.

Politically, Willis was a member of the Democratic Party. In the congressional elections of 1876 he was in the fifth electoral district of Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Henry Watterson on March 4, 1877. After four elections he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1887 five contiguous legislatures. From 1883 to 1887, he was Chairman of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors.

In the elections of 1886 he lost his party colleague Asher G. Caruth. After his retirement from the House of Representatives Willis practiced first as a lawyer again. In 1893 he was sent by President Grover Cleveland as an American envoy to Hawaii. There he was represented as the successor of James Henderson Blount during the then internal political unrest in the still independent Kingdom of Hawaii to American interests. Albert Willis held his office until his death on January 6, 1897. He was then buried in Louisville.