Nelson Dingley, Jr.

Who was Nelson Dingley, Jr.?

Nelson Dingley, Jr. was a journalist and politician from the U.S. state of Maine.

Dingley was born in Durham, Maine and attended the common schools at Unity, Maine and Waterville College. He graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1855, where he was a founding member of the Psi Epsilon Chapter of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. He then studied law, received an LL.D. from Bates College, and was admitted to the bar in 1856. However, he never practiced law and instead became proprietor and editor of the Lewiston, Maine Journal, holding this post for more than twenty years. He was a member of the Maine House of Representatives 1862–1865, 1868, and again in 1873, serving as speaker in 1863 and 1864. He was the 34th Governor of Maine in 1874 and a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1876 and 1880.

Dingley was elected as a Republican to the 47th Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William P. Frye. He was then reelected to the Forty-eighth and to the seven succeeding Congresses, serving from September 12, 1881, until his death in Washington, D.C., before the close of the Fifty-fifth Congress.