Bethuel Kitchen

Bethuel Middleton Kitchen ( born March 21, 1812 in Ganotown, Berkeley County, Virginia; † 15 December 1895 in Shanghai, West Virginia ) was an American politician. Between 1867 and 1869 he represented the second electoral district of the state of West Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Bethuel Kitchen was born 1812 in Ganotown, which at that time was still part of Virginia and later became part of the 1863 West Virginia State incurred. He attended the common schools and was then engaged in farming and there, especially in the livestock. Politically, he was only in the early 1860s active as he sat from 1861 to 1862 in the House of Virginia. After the founding of West Virginia, he was there from 1864 to 1865 the state Senate. Already in 1862 he had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. There he was in 1863 but not approved, because his constituency was then still considered part of the leaked from the Union State of Virginia.

In the congressional elections of 1866 Kitchen was then selected as the candidate of the Republican party in the second district of West Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington. There he entered on March 4, 1867, the successor of George R. Latham. Rejecting another candidacy in 1868, Kitchen was able to complete up to March 3, 1869 only one term in Congress, which were influenced by issues of Reconstruction and the failed impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. In addition, in 1868 the 14th Amendment was ratified, by which the citizenship was ausgeweitetet also former slaves and African Americans.

After the end of his time in Congress Kitchen took its previous agricultural activities on again. From 1869 to 1875 he was president of the Agricultural and Crafts Association in three counties in West Virginia. Between 1873 and 1879 he headed the State Farm (State Grange ) of West Virginia. Between 1878 and 1879 he was again a member of the State Senate. Since 1880 to 1895 was Bethuel Kitchen chief administrator of the District Court in Berkeley County. He died on 15 December 1895 in the town of Shanghai and was also buried there.