William Smyth (congressman)

William Smyth ( born January 3, 1824 in Eden, County Tyrone, Ireland, † September 30, 1870 in Marion, Iowa ) was an American politician. Between 1869 and 1870 he represented the state of Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

William Smyth attended the public schools of his Irish homeland. In 1838 he emigrated with his parents to the United States. The family first settled in Pennsylvania and moved 1844 in the Iowa Territory. There Smyth attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City. After a subsequent study of law and its made ​​in 1847 admitted to the bar, he began practicing in his new profession in Marion. Between 1848 and 1853 he was district attorney in Linn County; 1853 to 1857, he served as a judge in the fourth judicial district of Iowa. In 1858, Smyth was chairman of a commission to revise the laws of the State of Iowa. He also took two years as a colonel in the Union Army in the Civil War in part.

Politically Smyth was a member of the Republican Party, founded in 1854. In the congressional elections of 1868 he was in the second electoral district of Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Hiram Price on March 4, 1869. He was nominated by his party in 1870 for another term in Congress, but died before the election on September 30, 1870. According to a by-election be seat fell to William P. Wolf. William Smyth was married to Mary Brier. He was buried in Marion.

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