Robert B. Van Valkenburg
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Robert Bruce Van Valkenburg (September 4, 1821 – August 1, 1888) was a United States Representative from New York. Born in Prattsburg, Steuben County, he attended Franklin Academy there. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Bath. He was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1852 and again in 1857 and 1858, and was in command of the recruiting depot in Elmira and organized seventeen regiments for the Civil War.
Van Valkenburg was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses and held office from March 4, 1861 to March 3, 1865. While in the House he was chairman of the Committee on Militia (Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses). He served as colonel of the One Hundred and Seventh Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, and was its commander at the Battle of Antietam. He was Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1865, and was appointed Minister Resident to Japan on January 18, 1866 and served until November 11, 1869. It was in his role as Minister Resident in Japan that Van Valkenburg prevented the delivery of the CSS Stonewall to the forces of the Tokugawa clan during the Boshin War.
After his return from Japan, Van Valkenburg settled in Florida, and was appointed associate justice of the Florida Supreme Court on May 20, 1874. He held that position until his death in Suwanee Springs, near Live Oak in 1888; interment was in Old St. Nicholas Cemetery, on the south side of the St. Johns River, south of Jacksonville.
