Elza Jeffords (May 23,1826 – March 19,1885) was a U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 3rd congressional district.
Jeffords was born near Ironton in Lawrence County,Ohio,on May 23,1826. [1] He grew up in Portsmouth,Ohio,where he attended public schools before apprenticing as a clerk in a law office. Jeffords read law during his apprenticeship and was admitted to the bar in 1847. After his admission to the legal profession he practiced in Portsmouth. [2]
During the American Civil War,Jeffords served as a clerk in the Quartermaster's Department of the Army of the Tennessee from June 1862 to December 1863. [2] Following the war he moved to Mayersville,Issaquena County,Mississippi. [1] On February 25,1868,General Alvan Cullem Gillem,who had been given post-Civil War command over a region including Mississippi,named Jeffords to the state supreme court,along with Thomas Shackelford and Ephraim G. Peyton. [3] [4] [1] [5] He was a delegate to the 1872 Republican National Convention,which renominated U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
Jeffords was elected as a Republican to the 48th United States Congress,carrying nearly 70% of the vote. [2] He served a single term and was unsuccessful during his 1884 reelection campaign. Jeffords died on March 19,1885,in Vicksburg,Mississippi. [6] He was interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery near Vicksburg.
Eighty years passed before another Republican represented Mississippi in the U.S. House,Prentiss Walker of Mize in Smith County,represented the 4th district for a single term from 1965 to 1967. He forfeited the seat to make an unsuccessful race against U.S. Senator James O. Eastland.
Hiram Rhodes Revels was an American Republican politician,minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church,and college administrator. Born free in North Carolina,he later lived and worked in Ohio,where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era,he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.
Julius Caesar Burrows was a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan.
Jeffords is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
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Roswell Gilbert Horr was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.
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Sewall Spaulding Farwell was a Civil War officer and one-term Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 2nd congressional district.
Albert Clifton Thompson was an American lawyer and Civil War veteran who served as a United States representative from Ohio and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
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George Colin McKee was a U.S. Representative from Mississippi. A lawyer in Illinois,he served with the Union army during the Civil War and afterwards settled in Vicksburg,Mississippi. A Republican,he was active in politics and was a delegate to the 1868 Mississippi Constitutional Convention. He served as a postmaster.
Harry R. Jeffords was a lawyer and politician who served as a United States Attorney from 1889 until his death. He also served in the Mississippi Senate.
Cedar Hill Cemetery,also known as the City of Vicksburg Cemetery and Soldiers Rest Cemetery,is one of the "...oldest and largest cemeteries in the United States that is still in use". Establishment of Cedar Hill Cemetery predates the American Civil War.
Thomas G. Shackelford was chief justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi from 1868 to 1870.