Franklin Landers

Who was Franklin Landers?

Franklin Landers was a U.S. Representative from Indiana.

Born near the village of Landersdale in Morgan County, Indiana, Landers attended local schools. At the age of twenty-one he engaged in teaching school. He was associated with his brother in mercantile pursuits at Waverly, Indiana. Landers laid out the town of Brooklyn, Indiana, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits and stock raising. He served as a member of the State senate 1860-1864. He moved to Indianapolis in 1865 and engaged in the dry-goods business. In 1873, he became the head of a pork-packing house.

Landers was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth Congress.

A reporter described him as "a big-framed, big-boned man, stoop-shouldered and red-faced. he shambles in his walk and talks in a low, cooing tone of confidentiality. He chews his cigar distractedly, rarely consuming it with fire. His eyes are soft and insinuating. His face is placid and innocent. ... His grammar education was neglected. He is not 'high-toned.' He dresses as stylish as H. G. [Horace Greeley] did, and could give a better account of 'what I know about farming,' for he does know a potato patch from a field of buckwheat."