John Roy LYNCH, Congress, MS (1847-1939)

LYNCH John Roy , a Representative from Mississippi; born near Vidalia, Concordia Parish, La., September 10, 1847; after his father's death moved with his mother to Natchez, Miss., in 1863, where they were held as slaves; after emancipation engaged in photography and attended evening school; appointed by Governor Ames as a justice of the peace in 1869; member of the State house of representatives 1869-1873 and served the last term as speaker; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1872, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1900; elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1876 to the Forty-fifth Congress; successfully contested the election of James R. Chalmers to the Forty-seventh Congress and served from April 29, 1882, to March 3, 1883; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; returned to his plantation in Adams County, Miss., and engaged in agricultural pursuits; chairman of the Republican State executive committee 1881-1889; member of the Republican National Committee for the State of Mississippi 1884-1889; temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1884; Fourth Auditor of the Treasury for the Navy Department under President Harrison 1889-1893; studied law; was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1896; returned to Washington, D.C., in 1897, where he practiced his profession until 1898, when he was appointed a major and additional paymaster of Volunteers during the Spanish-American War by President William McKinley; was appointed by President McKinley as a paymaster in the Regular Army with the rank of captain in 1901; was promoted to major in 1906; retired from the Regular Army in 1911; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1912 and continued the practice of his profession until his death in that city on November 2, 1939; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

Bibliography

"John Roy Lynch" in Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007. Prepared under the direction of the Committee on House Administration by the Office of History & Preservation, U. S. House of Representatives. Washington: Government Printing Office, 2008; Lynch, John Roy. Reminiscences of an Active Life. Edited by John Hope Franklin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Reprint Edition, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008.

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