”Members of the House of Representatives on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington” (detail), engraving after Valerian Gribayedoff, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1894, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

LAPHAM, Oscar, a Representative from Rhode Island; born in Burrillville, Providence County, R.I., June 29, 1837; attended the seminary in Scituate, Mass., the academy in Pembroke, N.H., the University Grammar School, Providence, R.I., and was graduated from Brown University, Providence, R.I., in 1864; member of the board of trustees and of the advisory and executive committee of that university; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1867 and practiced in Providence, R.I.; served in the Civil War as first lieutenant, adjutant, and captain in the Twelfth Rhode Island Volunteers; member of the State senate in 1887 and 1888; member and treasurer of the Democratic State central committee 1887-1891; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-eighth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-first Congresses; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4, 1891-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; resumed the practice of law in Providence, R.I., and died there March 29, 1926; interment in Swan Point Cemetery.