WILDE, Richard Henry (1789-1847)

Jacksonian of Georgia

98th congressional district

Served in House 1815-1817 , 1823-1825 , 1827-1835

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Biography

Representative from Georgia; born in Dublin, Ireland, September 24, 1789; immigrated to the United States in 1797 with his parents, who settled in Baltimore, Md.; received a limited schooling; moved to Augusta, Ga., in 1802; engaged in mercantile pursuits; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1809 and commenced practice in Augusta; solicitor general of the superior court of Richmond County and by virtue of this office attorney general of Georgia 1811-1813; elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress (March 4, 1815-March 3, 1817); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1816 to the Fifteenth Congress; elected as a Crawford Republican to the Eighteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Thomas W. Cobb and served from February 7 to March 3, 1825; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1824 to the Nineteenth Congress and for election in 1826 to the Twentieth Congress; subsequently elected as a Jacksonian to the Twentieth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Forsyth; reelected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, and Twenty-third Congresses and served from November 17, 1827, to March 3, 1835; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1834 to the Twenty-fourth Congress; engaged in literary pursuits while traveling in Europe 1835-1840; moved to New Orleans in 1843 and continued the practice of law; professor of constitutional law in the University of Louisiana at New Orleans; died in New Orleans, La., September 10, 1847; interment in a vault in a cemetery in New Orleans; reinterred at Sand Hill family burying ground near Augusta, Ga., in 1854 and again in 1886 in the City Cemetery, Augusta, Ga.
Courtesy of Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

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