democracy, “a pack of fools.” Twelfth and lastly, it proved that Whigs have no particular business in a Locofoco meeting. The fate of theWhig who was run out of the window, leg foremost, affords an illustration of this fact.
Colonel William F. Prosser, a son of David and Rachel Williams Prosser, natives of Breckenshire, Wales, was born March 16, 1834, at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His parents removed to Beula, Cambria county, in the following year, and three years later moved to Johnstown, where his mother died in 1842, leaving four sons—W. F., A. S., John and a. G. Prosser.
While in Johnstown he studied law, but the western fever seizing him in 1854 he crossed the plains to California and engaged in mining and trading. In 1858-59 he served with distinction as a lieutenant in a company of volunteers recruited to quell the Indian outbreaks on the northern coast of that state. He was the first Republican candidate for the legislature from Trinity county in 1860, but when the Rebellion broke out he hastened home to enlist in the Anderson Troop as a private with James Quinn and James N. Rea of Johnstown. Colonel Prosser served in the campaign of the Army of the Cumberland, participating in all of its battles; was captured, paroled and exchanged in 1862, serving as quartermaster of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. In December, 1862, he was promoted to captain and led his company in the dreadful fight at Stone River. He was transferred to the 2d Tennessee Cavalry, and was commissioned major in March, 1863; lieutenant-colonel in March, 1864, and colonel in June, 1865. In the latter part of 1864 he commanded a brigade of cavalry in Northern Alabama.
After his muster out Colonel Prosser purchased a farm near Nashville, Tennessee, and in 1867 was elected to the legislature by the Republican party of Davidson county, where in February, 1869, he was elected speaker pro tem. In December, 1867, he was chosen a director of the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad Company, and on the part of the state one of the directors of the Edgefield and Kentucky railroad the following March. In 1868 he was elected to the XLIst Congress from the Nashville district, and he appointed the first Negro every entering West Point Military Academy as a cadet. On the expiration of his congressional term he was appointed postmaster of Nashville by President Grant, also a commissioner from Tennessee in the Centennial Commission. After serving four years as postmaster
|
