George Graham VEST, Congress, MO (1830-1904)

VEST, George Graham, a Senator from Missouri; born in Frankfort, Franklin County, Ky., December 6, 1830; graduated from Centre College, Danville, Ky., in 1848 and from the law department of Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., in 1853; admitted to the bar in 1853 and commenced practice in Georgetown, Mo.; moved to Boonville, Mo., in 1856; Democratic presidential elector in 1860; member, State house of representatives 1860-1861; judge advocate with the Confederate forces in Missouri in 1862; served in the house of representatives of the Confederate Congress from February 1862 to January 1865, when he resigned, having been appointed to fill a vacancy in the Confederate Senate; resumed the practice of law in Sedalia, Mo., in 1865; moved to Kansas City in 1877; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate; reelected in 1885, 1891 and 1897 and served from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1903; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Fifty-third Congress), Committee on Epidemic Diseases (Fifty-fourth Congress), Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses); due to ill health, retired from public life and resided at Sweet Springs, Saline County, Mo., until his death on August 9, 1904; interment in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Mo.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Holsinger, M. Paul. “Senator George Graham Vest and the ‘Menace’ of Mormonism, 1882-1887.” Missouri Historical Review 65 (October 1970): 23-36; Kuhr, Manuel Irwin, “How George Vest Came to Missouri.” Missouri Historical Review 59 (April 1965): 424-27.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present