John T. Spriggs

Who was John T. Spriggs?

John Thomas Spriggs was a U.S. Representative from New York.

Born in Peterborough, England, J. Thomas Spriggs immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Whitesboro, New York in 1836. He attended Hamilton College, and graduated from Union College in 1848. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1848 and began practice in Whitesboro. He became prosecuting attorney of Oneida County in 1853, and county treasurer in 1854. He served as mayor of Utica, New York from 1868 to 1880, and as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1860, 1872 and 1880.

Spriggs was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses. He served as chairman of the Committee on Accounts. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1886 to the Fiftieth Congress and afterward resumed the practice of law. He died in Utica on December 23, 1888 and was buried in Whitesboro Cemetery in Whitesboro.