Isaac Goodnight was born near Scottsville,Kentucky on January 31,1849.[1] He was the son of Isaac and Lucinda (Billingsby) Goodnight.[2] He is the great nephew of Isaac Goodnight of Harrodsburg,Kentucky,born January 1,1782,who is believed to have been the first white male child born in what is now Kentucky.[2]
On March 12,1879,Goodnight married Ella Hoy.[3] The couple had one son,Hoy Goodnight.[3]
Political career
In 1877,Goodnight was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives,serving a single,two-year term.[2] He served as the chairman of the Democratic Kentucky convention at Louisville,Kentucky in 1891.[1] He was elected to represent the Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1888.[2] He was twice re-elected,serving in the Fifty-first,Fifty-second,and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4,1889 –March 3,1895).[1] During his tenure,he was a member of the Judiciary Committee,rising to third in seniority on that committee by the end of his third term.[2]
Later life and death
Due to ill health and the fact that his absence from home was hurting his legal practice,Goodnight did not seek re-election in 1894.[2] After leaving Congress,he was elected a judge of the seventh Kentucky circuit in 1897 and served until his death in Franklin on July 24,1901.[1] He was buried in Green Lawn Cemetery.[1]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
