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Robert Schenck carte-de-visite, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
SCHENCK, Robert Cumming, a Representative from Ohio; born in Franklin, Ohio, October 4, 1809;
attended the rural schools and was graduated from Miami University, Oxford,
Ohio, in 1827; became a professor in that university 1827-1829; studied law;
was admitted to the bar in 1833 and commenced practice in Dayton, Ohio; member
of the State house of representatives 1839-1843; elected as a Whig to the
Twenty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843-March 3,
1851); chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Thirtieth Congress); was not a
candidate for renomination; Minister to Brazil and also accredited to Uruguay,
Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay, 1851-1853; entered the Union Army May
17, 1861, and served as brigadier general of Volunteers; promoted to major
general September 18, 1862, to date from August 30, 1862; resigned his
commission in the Army on December 3, 1863, to take his seat in Congress;
elected as a Republican to the Thirty-eighth and to the three succeeding
Congresses and served from March 4, 1863, to January 5, 1871, when he resigned
to accept a position in the diplomatic service; chairman, Committee on Military
Affairs (Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Ways and
Means (Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for
reelection in 1870 to the Forty-second Congress; Minister to Great Britain from
December 1870 until March 1876, when he resigned; delegate to the Philadelphia
Loyalist Convention in 1866; member of the Alabama Claims Commission in 1871;
resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C., where he died March 23, 1890;
interment in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.
BibliographyJoyner, Fred B. Robert Cumming Schenck, First Citizen and
Statesman of the Miami Valley.
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 58 (July
1949): 286-97.
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