Daniel Kerr

Who was Daniel Kerr?

Daniel Kerr was a two-term Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 5th congressional district in the 1880s, who later switched parties.

Born near Dalry, Ayrshire, Scotland, Kerr emigrated to the United States with his parents, Hugh Kerr and Margaret Galt, settling in Madison County, Illinois, in 1841. He attended the common schools. Kerr graduated from McKendree College in 1858. On November 9, 1861, he was united in marriage to Clara Theresa Estabrook in Edwardsville, Illinois. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1862 and commenced practice in Edwardsville, Illinois.

He enlisted in the Union Army on August 12, 1862. He was promoted to Second Lieutenant, Company G, 117th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, in 1863 and to First Lieutenant in 1864.

He served as member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1868, serving until 1870. In 1870 he moved to Grundy Center, Iowa, where he continued to practice law, and also farmed. He was a school director in 1875.

Kerr was elected mayor of Grundy Center in 1877. He was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1883.

In 1886, ran for the Republican nomination to Congress in the Fifth Iowa District. His money did him no harm; nor did owning the Grundy Center Argus, a Republican newspaper. A bitter fight in the convention left bruised feelings all around, and the leading Republican newspaper in Cedar Rapids, the Evening Gazette, charged the money-changers had brought about Kerr's nomination. Kerr could counter by pointing to his battle against jobbery in the Illinois legislature and still more to the advantages he had brought to his community in pushing the Burlington railroad into the northwestern counties of the state. Kerr's own known prohibitionist leanings harmed him seriously among the German Republicans in Cedar Rapids, but made up for it among Republican farmers in the drier countryside. Most of all, the incumbent Democratic congressman, Benjamin Frederick, found it impossible to rein in a savagely-divided and ill-natured party. Kerr was elected as a Republican to the Fiftieth Congress, unseating incumbent Democrat Benjamin T. Frederick. After re-election in 1888 and service in the Fifty-first Congress, he declined to run for a third term in 1890. In all, he served in Congress from March 4, 1887 to March 3, 1891. After leaving Congress, Kerr resumed the practice of law.