HENDERSON, David Bremner, (1840 - 1906)


Oil on canvas, Freeman Thorp, 1903, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

HENDERSON, David Bremner, a Representative from Iowa; born in Old Deer, Scotland, March 14, 1840; immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Winnebago County, Ill., in 1846; moved to Fayette County, Iowa, in 1849; attended the common schools and the Upper Iowa University at Fayette; enlisted in the Union Army September 15, 1861, as a private in Company C, Twelfth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry; was elected and commissioned first lieutenant of that company and served with it until discharged, owing to the loss of a leg, February 26, 1863; commissioner of the board of enrollment of the third district of Iowa from May 1863 to June 1864; entered the Army as colonel of the Forty-sixth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served until the close of the war; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1865 and commenced practice in Dubuque, Iowa; collector of internal revenue for the third district of Iowa from November 1865 to June 1869 when he resigned; assistant United States district attorney for the northern district of Iowa 1869-1871; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1903); chairman, Committee on Militia (Fifty-first Congress), Committee on the Judiciary (Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Rules (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1902; died in Dubuque, Iowa, February 25, 1906; interment in Linwood Cemetery.


Bibliography

Hoing, Willard L. “David B. Henderson: Speaker of the House.” Iowa Journal of History 55 (January 1957): 1-34; Schlup, Leonard. “Defender of the Old Guard: David B. Henderson and Republican Politics in Gilded Age America.” Julien’s Journal 22 (January 1997): 22-24.