Up for auction "Tennessee Congressman" Lemuel P. Padgett Signed TLS Dated 1912.

ES-8986

Lemuel Phillips Padgett

(November 28, 1855 – August 2, 1922) was an American

politician and a member of the United States House of

Representatives for the 7th congressional district

of Tennessee.

Born in Columbia, Tennessee in Maury County Padgett was the son of John

B. and Rebecca Ophelia (Phillips) Padgett. He attended the private schools in

that county and graduated from Erskine

College at Due West, South

Carolina in 1876. Having begun the study of law in September 1876,

he was admitted to the bar in March 1877. Padgett

began to practice law in Columbia, Tennessee in January 1879 and he married Ida

B. Latta on November 11, 1880. He was a Presidential Elector for Tennessee,

1884, and a member of the Tennessee

Senate from 1899 to 1901. Elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-seventh and the ten

succeeding Congresses, Padgett served from March 4, 1901 until his death.During the Sixty-second through Sixty-fifth Congresses, he

was the chairman of the United States House Committee on

Naval Affairs. A thorough and studious man, he took his job

seriously. He became like a walking encyclopedia about all things naval