William L. Copeland (1846 - December 30, 1885) was a police officer, government official, and state legislator in Arkansas. [1] He was born in Ohio and studied at Oberlin College in Ohio. On March 7, 1865, at the end of the American Civil War, he joined Company C, 2nd Ohio Cavalry Regiment in the Union Army. At the end of the war, he returned to Oberlin College, where he studied from 1867–69.
He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1873 until 1875 representing Crittenden County. [2] He was appointed assessor of Crittenden County. [3] In 1876 he was the Republican candidate for Arkansas Secretary of State. [2] [4] A letter he wrote to his wife survives. [5] The Daily Arkansas Gazette described him as "Colored". [6] He was a Republican. [7]
Copeland may have been the first Little Rock police officer killed in the line of duty. [8] [9] [10] [11]
Schuyler Colfax was an American journalist, businessman, and politician who served as the 17th vice president of the United States from 1869 to 1873, and prior to that as the 25th speaker of the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1869. Originally a Whig, then part of the short-lived People's Party of Indiana, and later a Republican, he was the U.S. Representative for Indiana's 9th congressional district from 1855 to 1869.
Joseph William Martin Jr. was an American Republican politician who served as the 44th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1947 to 1949 and 1953 to 1955. He represented a House district centered on his hometown of North Attleborough, Massachusetts, from 1925 to 1967 and was the leader of House Republicans from 1939 until 1959, when he was ousted from leadership after the party's disastrous losses in the 1958 elections. He was the only Republican to serve as Speaker in a sixty-four year period from 1931 to 1995. He was a "compassionate conservative" who opposed the New Deal and supported the conservative coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats.
Reuben Eaton Fenton was an American merchant and politician from New York. In the mid-19th Century, he served as a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and as Governor of New York.
John Mercer Langston was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, activist, diplomat, and politician. He was the founding dean of the law school at Howard University and helped create the department. He was the first president of what is now Virginia State University, a historically black college. He was elected a U.S. Representative from Virginia and wrote From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol; Or, the First and Only Negro Representative in Congress From the Old Dominion.
James Michael Mead was an American politician from New York. A Democrat, among the offices in which he served was member of the Erie County Board of Supervisors (1914-1915), New York State Assembly (1915-1918), United States House of Representatives (1919-1938), and United States Senate (1938-1947).
John Sappington Marmaduke was an American politician and soldier. He was the 25th governor of Missouri from 1885 until he died in 1887. During the American Civil War, he was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
Delos Rodeyn Ashley was a California and Nevada politician who served as State Treasurer of California and a member of the United States House of Representatives from Nevada.
Elbert Leroy Lampson was a notable figure in Ohio politics and public affairs during the second half of the nineteenth century. Hailing from Jefferson, Lampson was the 21st lieutenant governor of Ohio and former State Senator. A lawyer by profession, his time had been taken up with a diversity of interests. He was a banker, and for many years was a newspaper publisher.
More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy, disenfranchisement, and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states. Historian Canter Brown Jr. noted that in some states, such as Florida, the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The following is a partial list of notable African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900. Dates listed are the year that a term states or the range of years served if multiple terms.
William Edward Woodruff was an American politician and publisher who served as the first state treasurer of Arkansas from 1836 to 1838. He also served as the 10th postmaster of Little Rock from 1845 to 1846. Woodruff was the first publisher of a major Arkansas newspaper.
John Anthony Copeland Jr. was born free in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the eight children born to John Copeland Sr. and his wife Delilah Evans, free mulattos, who married in Raleigh in 1831. Delilah was born free, while John was manumitted in the will of his master. In 1843 the family moved north, to the abolitionist center of Oberlin, Ohio, where he later attended Oberlin College's preparatory division. He was a highly visible leader in the successful Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858, for which he was indicted but not tried. Copeland joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry; other than Brown himself, he was the only member of John Brown's raiders that was at all well known. He was captured, and a marshal from Ohio came to Charles Town to serve him with the indictment. He was indicted a second time, for murder and conspiracy to incite slaves to rebellion. He was found guilty and was hanged on December 16, 1859. There were 1,600 spectators. His family tried but failed to recover his body, which was taken by medical students for dissection, and the bones discarded.
Asa Hodges was an American U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 1st congressional district, with service from 1873 to 1875.
William Dale Owen was a U.S. Representative from Indiana. Before serving in Congress he was a clergyman, attorney, newspaper editor, and the author of two books. After serving in Congress and as Secretary of State of Indiana, he engaged in various business ventures, including promotion of coffee and rubber plantations in Mexico. In 1905 his business partner was arrested; in 1906 the partner was convicted of fraud and theft, and imprisoned. Owen left the United States to avoid prosecution; what happened to him after he fled the country is not known.
Albert Gallatin Riddle was a U.S. Representative from Ohio.
Lionel Allen Sheldon was appointed a brigadier general in the Ohio militia in 1858 by Governor Salmon P Chase and served as an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. A U.S. Representative from Louisiana. He was appointed Governor of the New Mexico Territory by President James Garfield and served in that role from 1881 until he resigned in 1885.
Allen Ralph Bushnell was an American attorney, politician, and Democratic member of Congress from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He also served as a Union Army officer in the American Civil War with the famous Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac.
Edward Allen Fulton was an American newspaperman, abolitionist, postmaster, farmer, and politician. He represented Drew County, Arkansas in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1871. After being enslaved in Missouri, he became an abolitionist and lived in Chicago. He returned to the south after the American Civil War. He was an advocate of civil rights for African Americans. He campaigned to be Arkansas Secretary of State. He survived an assassination attempt.
J. H. Johnson was a state legislator in Mississippi. He represented DeSoto County, Mississippi in the Mississippi House of Representatives 1872–1875.
William E. King (1885–1967) was an American lawyer and politician in Illinois. He served as a state legislator in the Illinois House of Representatives for eight years, followed by a full term as a state senator. He represented Illinois's 1st House of Representatives district.
Jesse Jackson Millsaps was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, a farmer, and a state legislator who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives representing Van Buren County, Arkansas in 1868 and 1885.