- Graham N. Fitch
Graham Newell Fitch (
December 5 ,1809 –November 29 ,1892 ) was aUnited States Representative and Senator fromIndiana . Born inLeRoy, New York , he attended Middlebury Academy and Geneva College; he studied medicine and completed his medical course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and commenced practice inLogansport, Indiana in 1834. He was a member of theIndiana House of Representatives in 1836 and 1839, and was a professor ofanatomy at theRush Medical College inChicago from 1844 to 1848, and at theIndianapolis Medical College in 1878.Fitch was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses, serving from
March 4 ,1849 toMarch 3 ,1853 ; he was not a candidate for renomination in 1852 and resumed the practice of medicine. He was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy in the term beginningMarch 4 ,1855 , and served fromFebruary 4 ,1857 , toMarch 3 ,1861 ; he was not a candidate for reelection in 1860. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Printing (Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses). During the Civil War he raised the Forty-sixth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry and served as its colonel. During the battles of New Madrid & Island No. 10 Colonel Fitch commanded the second brigade of General John M. Palmer's division. He also participated in the capture ofFort Pillow and Memphis and commanded the Union infantry forces at Saint Charles. 1862 he resigned because of injuries received in action. He resumed the practice of medicine in Logansport and died there in 1892; interment was in Mount Hope Cemetery.Edwin Denby, Fitch's grandson, was a
U.S. Representative fromMichigan and Secretary of the Navy.References
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