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ENRY HARRISON BINGHAM, soldier, and ranking member of the United States house of representatives, in point of continuous service, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1841. At sixteen years of age he entered Jefferson college, at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and was graduated in 1862, receiving the degree of A.B., and later the degree of A.M. He then began the study of law, but soon relinquished it to join the Union army, as a lieutenant of the 140th Pennsylvania volunteer infantry. His period of military service extended to July, 1866, during which time he was thrice wounded; at the battle of Gettysburg, July, 1863; at Spottsylvania, Virginia, in 1864; and at Farmville, Virginia, in 1865. He was mustered out of service with the brevet rank of brigadier-general of volunteers, having previously been brevetted for distinguished gallantry as major, lieutenant-colonel and colonel. As a further recognition of his valorous conduct on the field of battle he received from congress a medal of honor.

After the war. General Bingham returned to Philadelphia, and received appointment, in March, 1867, as postmaster of that city. Before his second term expired, he was elected to the clerkship of the courts of oyer and terminer and quarter sessions of the peace, at Philadelphia, and he resigned the postmastership in December, 1872, to accept this appointment. In 1875, he was reelected clerk of courts, and continued in office until his election as a representative to the forty-sixth Congress of the United States, in 1878. He has enjoyed the very unusual distinction of being returned to each successive congress since that time; and in 1904 he was chosen to a seat in the fifty-ninth Congress, this making in all a period of nearly thirty years of service in the house.

Outside of congress. General Bingham has been a familiar figure in the national councils of the Republican party. In 1872 he was delegate-at-large to the Republican national convention at Philadelphia; delegate from the first congressional district to the Republican national convention at Cincinnati, in 1876; at Chicago,