Edward L. Leahy

Edward Laurence Leahy (February 9, 1886 - July 22, 1953) was a United States Senator and federal judge from Rhode Island. Born in Bristol, Rhode Island, he attended the public schools, was a student at Brown University in 1904 and 1905, graduated from the law school of Georgetown University in 1908, was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1908 and commenced the practice of law in Bristol. He was judge of probate court in Bristol from 1910 to 1939 and a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1911 to 1913. He was elected to the Bristol school committee in 1913 and served as master of chancery in the superior court. During the First World War he served as a first lieutenant in the Judge Advocate General's Department of the United States Army. From 1919 to 1948 he was administrator of State taxes and in 1939 was director of the State department of revenue and regulation. He was director of finance, a member of the State sinking fund commission, and from 1942 to 1946 the State retirement board. He was adviser to the State department of finance in 1948 - 1949.

Leahy was appointed, on August 24, 1949, as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of J. Howard McGrath and served from August 24, 1949, to December 18, 1950, a successor having been elected and qualified; he was not a candidate for election to the vacancy. From January 1951 to his death, he was a United States district court judge for the district of Rhode Island. He died in Bristol in 1953; interment was in North Cemetery.

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*CongBio|L000173