Ashbel P. Fitch

Who was Ashbel P. Fitch?

Ashbel Parmelee Fitch was a U.S. Representative from New York.

Born in Mooers, New York, Fitch attended the public schools of New York, Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, the Universities of Jena and Berlin, Germany, and Columbia Law School in New York City. He was admitted to the bar in November 1869 and commenced to practice law in New York City.

Fitch was elected as a Republican to the Fiftieth Congress and as a Democrat to the Fifty-first, Fifty-second, and Fifty-third Congresses and served from March 4, 1887, until December 26, 1893, when he resigned.

He served as chairman of the Committee on Private Land Claims and the Committee on Election of President, Vice President, and Representatives.

Fitch resigned from Congress to accept Tammany Hall's nomination for Comptroller of New York City. He was elected and served in that office from 1893-1897. In 1897, Tammany refused to renominate him. Chauncey Depew placed his name in nomination at the Republican convention to become the first Comptroller of the Consolidated New York. He was defeated. He served as the founding president of the Trust Company of America in 1899. He died in New York City on May 4, 1904. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery.