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TILSON, John Quillin, a Representative from Connecticut; born in Clearbranch, Unicoi County, Tenn.,
April 5, 1866; attended public and private schools at Flag Pond, in his native county, and also at Mars
Hill, Madison County, N.C.; was graduated from Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, Tenn., in
1888, from Yale University, New Haven, Conn., in 1891, and from the law department of the same
university in 1893; was admitted to the bar in 1897 and commenced practice in New Haven, Conn.;
enlisted as a volunteer during the war with Spain and served as second lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment,
United States Volunteer Infantry; member of the State house of representatives 1904-1908, serving as
speaker the last two years; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses
(March 4, 1909-March 3, 1913); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third
Congress; served on the Mexican border as lieutenant colonel of the Second Infantry, Connecticut
National Guard, in 1916; elected to the Sixty-fourth and to the eight succeeding Congresses and
served from March 4, 1915, until his resignation on December 3, 1932; majority leader (Sixty-ninth,
Seventieth, and Seventy-first Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination in 1932; delegate to
the Republican National Convention in 1932; resumed practice of law in Washington, D.C., and New
Haven, Conn.; special lecturer at Yale University on parliamentary law and procedure; died in New
London, N.H., August 14, 1958; interment in private burial grounds on the family farm, Clearbranch,
Tenn.
BibliographySweeting, Orville J. John Q. Tilson and the
Re-Apportionment Act of 1929. Western Political Quarterly 9 (June 1956):
434-53.
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