Henry Drury HATFIELD, Congress, WV (1875-1962)

1875-1962
Senate Years of Service:
1929-1935
Party:
Republican

HATFIELD, Henry Drury, a Senator from West Virginia; born in Logan County, W.Va., September 15, 1875; attended the local schools and Franklin College at New Athens, Ohio; graduated in medicine from the University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky., in 1895 and from New York University in 1904; pursued additional advanced medical training; commissioner of health of Mingo County, W.Va., 1895-1900; surgeon for the Norfolk and Western Railway 1895-1913; surgeon in chief of West Virginia State Hospital No. 1 at Welsh, W.Va., 1899-1913; commissioner of district roads of McDonwell County 1900-1905; member, county court of McDowell 1906-1912; member, State senate 1908-1912, serving as president in 1911; Governor of West Virginia 1913-1917; during the First World War was a major in the Medical Corps of the United States Army 1917-1919, and was chief of the Surgical Service at Base Hospital No. 36, at Detroit, Mich.; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1928 and served from March 4, 1929, to January 3, 1935; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1934; chairman, Committee on Immigration (Seventy-second Congress); resumed the practice of medicine and also managed a hospital and several farms; was a resident of Huntington, W.Va., until his death there on October 23, 1962; interment in Woodmere Cemetery.

Bibliography

Karr, Carolyn. “A Political Biography of Henry Hatfield.” West Virginia History 28 (October 1966): 35-64, 28 (January 1967): 137-170; Penn, Neil Shaw. “Henry D. Hatfield and Reform Politics: A Study of West Virginia Politics from 1908-1917.” Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1973.

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