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Senate Years of Service: 1879-1903 Party: Democrat
VEST, George Graham, a Senator from Missouri; born in Frankfort, Franklin County, Ky., December 6,
1830; graduated from Centre College, Danville, Ky., in 1848 and from the law department of
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., in 1853; admitted to the bar in 1853 and commenced
practice in Georgetown, Mo.; moved to Boonville, Mo., in 1856; Democratic presidential elector in
1860; member, State house of representatives 1860-1861; judge advocate with the Confederate
forces in Missouri in 1862; served in the house of representatives of the Confederate Congress from
February 1862 to January 1865, when he resigned, having been appointed to fill a vacancy in the
Confederate Senate; resumed the practice of law in Sedalia, Mo., in 1865; moved to Kansas City in
1877; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate; reelected in 1885, 1891 and 1897 and
served from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1903; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and
Grounds (Fifty-third Congress), Committee on Epidemic Diseases (Fifty-fourth Congress), Committee
on Public Health and National Quarantine (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses); due to ill
health, retired from public life and resided at Sweet Springs, Saline County, Mo., until his death on
August 9, 1904; interment in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Mo.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Holsinger, M. Paul. Senator George Graham Vest and
the Menace of Mormonism, 1882-1887. Missouri Historical Review 65 (October
1970): 23-36; Kuhr, Manuel Irwin, How George Vest Came to Missouri. Missouri
Historical Review 59 (April 1965): 424-27.
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