David Grant Colson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grant_Colson

David Grant Colson (April 1, 1861 – September 27, 1904) was a U.S. Representative from Kentucky.

Biography

Born in Yellow Creek (now Middlesboro, Kentucky), Knox (now Bell) County, Kentucky, Colson attended the common schools and the academies at Tazewell and Mossy Creek, Tennessee. He studied law at the University of Kentucky at Lexington in 1879 and 1880. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Pineville. Examiner and special examiner in the Pension Bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., from September 1882 to June 1886. He returned to Kentucky in 1887. He served as member of the State house of representatives in 1887 and 1888. He served as mayor of Middlesboro 1893-1895.

Colson was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1899). He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings (Fifty-fifth Congress).

He served as colonel of a Kentucky regiment during the Spanish-American War. In a feud with a fellow officer after mustering out after the war, he killed three men in a pistol fight in Frankfort, Kentucky on January 16, 1900.

He died in Middlesboro, Kentucky, September 27, 1904. He was interred in Colson Cemetery.

GEDCOM Note

<p>David was a member of the 54th andf 55th Congress and a Colonel of the 4th Kentuck Regiment Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish American war. He studied law at the University of Kentucky. He practice law in Pineville, and was an examiner in the Pension Bureau of the Dept of the interior. He was a member of the State House of Representatives, and later the mayor of Middlesboro. In his frist attempt to beome Mayor, he was defeated in what was widely considered a rigged election lead by the English developers of Middlesboro. In an infamous note, he was wounded in a shoot-out in the Capitol Hotel in Frankfort during the Goebel assassination. Three men were killed, including his chief rival in the Governor election. He was found not guilty, as not one would come forward and identify him as the killer.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>That was the end of his political career. He went back to his Law practice, representing Berry Howard, the Bell County man that was accused of killing Goebel. David won the aquittal of Howard. Later he served on the Middlesboro Board of Education as well.</p><p><p></p></p><p>He became quite ill later, and took his own life.</p>