Representative from Indiana; born in Mauckport, Harrison County, Ind., May 7, 1842; attended the common schools, Corydon High School, and Indiana University at Bloomington; taught school; served in the Union Army during the Civil War as second lieutenant and captain in the Thirteenth Indiana Volunteer Cavalry, which he had assisted to organize; was mustered out as captain and returned to Mauckport; deputy county auditor of Harrison County 1866-1868; deputy county clerk of Harrison County 1868-1870; appointed by President Andrew Johnson as assessor of internal revenue in 1867, but was not confirmed by the United States Senate; studied law; was admitted to the bar in Corydon, Ind., in 1871 and practiced in Indiana and Kentucky; member of the State senate 1874-1878; editor of the Corydon Democrat 1879-1882; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1881-March 3, 1885); chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Forty-eighth Congress); was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1884 to the Forty-ninth Congress; resumed the practice of law in Corydon; appointed assistant commissioner of the General Land Office on October 1, 1885, and commissioner on March 27, 1888; resigned March 4, 1889, but remained in charge until June 20, 1889; continued the practice of law in Washington, D.C.; was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for election in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1896; served as legal expert in the Department of Labor in 1918; resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C., until his death there on June 1, 1930; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.