William H. Cate

William Henderson Cate (November 11, 1839 – August 23, 1899) was a U.S. Representative from Arkansas.

Cate was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee and attended the common schools, as well as an academy at Abingdon, Virginia. He ultimately graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1857 and then taught school in the south and west. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate States Army where he rose to the rank of captain.

Cate moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1865, studied law, and was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1866 and commenced the practice of law. He served as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives 1871-1873 and during the extra session of 1874. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1878, and was later appointed and subsequently elected judge of the second judicial circuit of Arkansas in 1884. He organized the Bank of Jonesboro in 1887.

Cate presented credentials as a Democratic member-elect to the Fifty-first Congress where he served from March 4, 1889 until March 5, 1890 when he was succeeded by Lewis P. Featherstone. Featherstone had contested the election after having been put up as a candidate to oppose Cate by The Agricultural Wheel. In an agreement between The Wheel and the Republican Party, the Republicans agreed to support Featherstone against Cate. In return "The Wheel" agreed to support John M. Clayton against Clifton R. Breckinridge. The House Committee on Elections decided in favor of Featherstone, ruling that he won by 86 votes.^[1]

Cate was elected to the Fifty-second Congress which ran from March 4, 1891 until March 3, 1893. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1892 to the Fifty-third Congress. He later resumed the practice of law in Jonesboro, Arkansas and died while on August 23, 1899 while on a visit in Toledo, Ohio. He was interred in the City Cemetery in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

References

• William H. Cate at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress