Representative Henry Otis Pratt View All Years

HENRY OTIS PRATT was born in Foxcraft, Maine, February 11, 1838, and died in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 22, 1931. Burial was in Oak Hill Cemetery Cedar Rapids. He attended common school, Foxcraft Academy, and was graduated from the Law Department of Harvard University. He removed to Iowa in 1862, was admitted to the bar at Mason City the same year, and August 22, 1862, enlisted in Company B, Thirty-second Iowa Infantry. On March 18, 1863, he was discharged at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, because of illness. Returning to Iowa he entered the practice of law at Charles City, but varied it by teaching school a part of the time. He was superintendent of schools of Floyd County in 1868 and 1869. In 1869 he was elected representative and was re-elected in 1871, serving in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth general assemblies. In 1872, the state having been redistricted, he was elected the first representative in Congress from the then Fourth District, and was also re-elected in 1874, and served in the Forty-third and Forty-fourth congresses, becoming intimately associated with Blaine, Garfield and other leading members. He served as permanent chairman of the Republican State Convention in 1875. Tiring of political life, he declined further to be a candidate for office and at the end of his congressional service in 1877 he took up study for the ministry, and in October of the same year was ordained and entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. During the next forty years he was actively in that service. He was pastor at Waterloo, Toledo, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown, Iowa City, Mount Vernon, Davenport, Manchester, Iowa Falls and Tama. In 1908 he was made conference evangelist. From 1913 to 1918 he was chaplain of the Iowa Soldiers Home at Marshalltown, and remained two years more at the request of the veterans. Soon thereafter he removed to Cedar Rapids and became pastor emeritus of St. Paul’s Methodist Church in that city. He and Mrs. Pratt celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary October 21, 1930. He was a man of fine ability and character, filling well his many positions.