INGALLS, John James, (1833 - 1900)

Senate Years of Service: 1873-1891
Party: Republican

INGALLS, John James, a Senator from Kansas; born in Middleton, Essex County, Mass., December 29, 1833; attended the public schools in Haverhill, Mass., and was privately tutored; graduated from Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., in 1855; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1857; moved to Kansas in 1858; member of the State constitutional convention 1859; secretary of the Territorial Council 1860; secretary of the State senate 1861; during the Civil War served as judge advocate of the Kansas Volunteers; member, State senate 1862; unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor of Kansas in 1862 and 1864; edited the Atchison Champion 1863-1865 and aided in founding the Kansas Magazine; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1872; reelected in 1879 and again in 1885 and served from March 4, 1873, to March 3, 1891; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1890; chairman, Committee on Pensions (Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses), Committee on the District of Columbia (Forty-seventh through Fifty-first Congresses); devoted his time to journalism, literature, and farming until his death in East Las Vegas, N.Mex., August 16, 1900; interment in Mount Vernon Cemetery, Atchison, Kans.


Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Ingalls, John. A Collection of the Writings of John Ingalls. Edited by William Connelley. Kansas City: Hudson-Kimberly Co., 1902; Williams, Burton. Senator John James Ingalls, Kansas’ Iridescent Republican. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1972.