Jeter Connelly Pritchard

Who was Jeter Connelly Pritchard?

Jeter Connelly Pritchard was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of North Carolina between 1895 and 1903. He was the only Republican to represent a southern state in the United States Senate during that time.

Pritchard was born in Jonesborough, Tennessee. A newspaper editor/publisher and later a lawyer by trade, he was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives from Madison County in 1884, 1886, and 1890, and was a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1888. He read law to enter the bar in 1889, and established his legal practice in Marshall, North Carolina. He unsuccessfully sought appointment to the U.S. Senate in 1891, and election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1892.

Following the victory of the Republican-Populist alliance in the 1894 legislative elections, the North Carolina General Assembly elected Pritchard to the Senate, to complete the rest of the term of the late Sen. Zebulon Vance. He was re-elected by the legislature in 1897 to a full term. The legislature chose not to re-elect him to the Senate in 1903.

On November 10, 1903, Pritchard was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated by Harry M. Clabaugh. Pritchard was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 16, 1903, and received his commission the same day. Less than six months later, on April 27, 1904, Roosevelt nominated Pritchard for elevation to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated by Charles Henry Simonton. Pritchard was again confirmed by the United States Senate, on April 27, 1904, and hi received commission the same day. Pritchard served on that court until his death in 1921. Among his decisions as an appellate judge was the grant of a writ of habeas corpus reversing a contempt of court citation against journalist Josephus Daniels.