Hannibal Lafayette Godwin

Who was Hannibal Lafayette Godwin?

Hannibal Lafayette Godwin was a Democratic U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1907 and 1921.

Born near Dunn in Harnett County, North Carolina, Godwin attended common schools near his home and then Trinity College in Durham. He studied law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After being admitted to the bar in 1896, he practiced in Dunn and was elected Dunn's mayor in 1897. In 1903, Godwin was sent to the North Carolina Senate, and from 1904 to 1906, he sat on the executive committee of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

In 1906, Godwin was first elected to the United States Congress; he would be re-elected six times, serving from March 4, 1907 to March 3, 1921. In Congress, he rose to chair the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. He lost his Congressional race in 1920 and returned to the practice of law in Dunn, where he died in 1929; he is buried in Dunn's Greenwood Cemetery.

Hannibal Lafayette Godwin at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress