Shepherd Leffler

Shepherd Leffler (April 24, 1811 - September 7, 1879) was a U.S. Representative from Iowa, brother of Isaac Leffler.

Born on his grandfather's plantation, "Sylvia's Plain," Washington County, Pennsylvania, near Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), Leffler attended private schools and was graduated from Washington College, Washington, Pennsylvania, and from the law department of Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1833.He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Wheeling.He moved to Burlington, Iowa (then a part of Michigan Territory), in 1835.He served as member of the Territorial house of representatives in 1839 and 1841.He served in the Territorial council 1841-1843 and in 1845.He served as member of the constitutional conventions in 1844 and 1846. Permanent president during the first convention. Upon the admission of Iowa as a State into the Union was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth Congress in 1846.He was reelected to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses and served from December 28, 1846, to March 3, 1851.He served as chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions (Thirty-first Congress).He engaged in the practice of his profession and in agricultural pursuits in Burlington.He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1856 to the Thirty-fifth Congress.He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Iowa in 1875.He died at his home, "Flint Hills," near Burlington, Iowa, September 7, 1879.He was interred in Aspen Grove Cemetery.

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