Representative from Jefferson county. Born in Fairfield, Iowa. His parents, of English descent, were of American nativity. He attended the graded schools, then three years at Parsons College and later three years at the State University of Iowa, where he graduated with the degree of B.S. in 1886. He graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania with the degree of M.D. in 1889 and the same year took his Master's degree from the University of Iowa. For two years after graduation he was resident physician in the Philadelphia Hospital, and in 1885 took post-graduate courses in Johns Hopkins University and in the University of Gottingen, Germany. On the mustering in of the Iowa troops for the Spanish War he was appointed major and surgeon of the Forty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry and served throughout the war in the South and in Cuba, a large part of this time on detached service in charge of the medical wards of the Second Division Hospital of the Seventh Army Corps. In 1900 he was appointed lecturer on hygiene in the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry of the State University of Iowa, and in 1901 he was chosen lecturer on bacteriology in Parsons College. He is a member of the American Medical Association, The American Public Health Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a Fellow of the Iowa Academy of Sciences. He was for some time first vice-president of the Iowa State Medical Association and president of the Des Moines Valley Medical Association and has published many articles on medical subjects. In 1901 he married Melinda E. Clapp of Ohio. He has always resided in Fairfield, Iowa, and has not before held a political office. Elected Representative in 1906. A Democrat in politics.