Biography

01/15/1847 - 07/19/1919

Drummer James George Mitchell (R37) Indiana and Jefferson Counties, 1893-1900 

Early Life: 

James George Mitchell, born January 15, 1847, Perrysville, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, son of Thomas Sharp Mitchell Sr. and Sarah E. (Blose) Mitchell; educated, common schools; drummer, captain, Civil War; married, Caroline Neal, children, sons, David Barkley, Mabel Clare; Pennsylvania National Guard; plasterer; merchant; auditor, Jefferson County, 1874; presidential appointee, postmaster, Jefferson County, 1881-1885, removed, 1885-1889, reappointed, 1889-1893; elected, Republican, Pennsylvania State Senate, 1893-1900; died, July 19, 1919 (aged 72), Perry Township, Hamilton, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania; interment, White Church Cemetery, Hamilton, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.   

Early Career:

Enlisted, drummer, Pittsburgh, September 9, 1861, age 15, Company A., 105th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (also known as "Wildcat Regiment") saw action in many battles including Yorktown; Williamsburg; 2nd Bull Run; Fredericksburg; Chancellorsville; Gettysburg; Wilderness, commissioned but not mustered out, captain, May 7, 1864, older brother, placed in charge of their unit; Spotsylvania; Petersburg and Appomattox; mustered out with his company, July 11, 1865.

Assigned, with regiment, Gettysburg Campaign, front lines, intense fighting, Little Round Top, July 2-3, 1863. In a post-battle letter, Colonel Calvin A. Craig wrote: “The One Hundred and Fifth never fought so well as at Gettysburg. We rallied some eight or ten times after the rest of the brigade had left us, and the boys fought like demons. Their battle-cry was "Pennsylvania". I could handle them just as well on that field of battle as though they had simply been on drill. This is a state of perfection in discipline that is gained by but few regiments.”  

Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, his older brother, captured, enemy flag, from the color bearer, 18th North Carolina Infantry.  

Captain, Pennsylvania National Guard, decade. 

Auditor, Jefferson County, 1874.

Pennsylvania Politics:

Unsuccessful campaign Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 1882.

Elected, Republican, 37th district, Pennsylvania State Senate, Indiana and Jefferson Counties, 1893-1900; committee assignments, Appropriations (Chairman), Canal and Inland Navigation, Finance, Judiciary Special, Law and Order, Military Affairs, Mines and Mining, Public Grounds and Buildings, Public Health and Sanitation, Public Supply of Light, Heat and Water, Railroad and Street Passenger Railways. 

Introduced legislation, 1897, ensure that city bakeries and small factories producing baked goods would be subject to state factory inspections, that schools statewide would have uniform textbooks which were pre-approved by a gubernatorial commission, and which transferred responsibility for the maintenance and rebuilding of township bridges of more than thirty feet in length to the commissioners of the counties where those bridges were located.

Continued Government Service/National Politics:

Presidential appointee, postmaster, Chester Alan Arthur, Jefferson County, 1881-1885, removed by Grover Cleveland administration, 1885-1889, reappointed, Benjamin Harrison term, 1889-1893. 

Cited: 

Cox, Harold. "Senate Members M". Wilkes University Election Statistics Project. Wilkes University.

Smull’s Legislative Handbook, (1900). Cochran, T.B., (Editor) Miller, H.P. (Assistant Editor) Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, pages 1187, 1192-1194, Biographical Sketches of Senators, page 1162.

Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, Volume III, pages 784-786.

Beyer, Walter Frederick and Oscar Frederick Keydel. Deeds of Valor: How America's Heroes Won the Medal of Honor: Personal Reminiscences and Records of Officers and Enlisted Men Who Were Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Most Conspicuous Acts of Bravery in Battle Combined with an Abridged History of Our Country's Wars, Volume II: "Another Group of Heroes", pages 529, 531. Detroit, Michigan: The Perrien-Keydel Company, 1902.

James George Mitchell (1847-1919) - Find a Grave Memorial