De Alva S. Alexander

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De Alva Stanwood Alexander (born July 17, 1845, Richmond, Maine; died January 30, 1925, Buffalo, New York) was an American journalist, lawyer, historian, and member of the United States House of Representatives.

De Alva Alexander grew up in Maine and Ohio. He enlisted in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry at age 16 and fought in the American Civil War. After the war, he attended Bowdoin College and graduated in 1870.

Alexander briefly worked as a teacher and newspaper editor in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He then moved to Indianapolis, where he was a correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette. He studied law and was admitted to the Indiana Bar in 1877, and went into private practice, moving to Buffalo, New York in 1885.

In Indianapolis, Alexander met and formed a friendship with U.S. Senator Benjamin Harrison. After Harrison was elected President of the United States in 1888, he appointed Alexander as United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York. In 1896, Alexander was elected as a Republican to the United States Congress, where he served seven terms until he was defeated for reelection in 1910.

While still serving in Congress, Alexander began work on Political History of the State of New York, a four-volume work finally completed in 1923. It focused on prominent political leaders such as Grover Cleveland, Thomas C. Platt, and Theodore Roosevelt. Alexander also wrote History and Procedure of the House of Representatives (1916). He died in Buffalo in 1925.

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