Representative Andrew Rechmond Boone

Andrew Rechmond Boone (April 4, 1831 – January 26, 1886) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and a prominent jurist and state official in the mid- to late nineteenth century. He was born in Davidson County, Tennessee, on April 4, 1831. In 1833 he moved with his parents to Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky, a developing community in the western part of the state. Boone was educated in the local public schools, reflecting the limited but growing system of common schooling available in Kentucky at the time.

After completing his basic education, Boone pursued the study of law, a common avenue into public life in the antebellum South. He read law in Kentucky, was admitted to the bar in 1852, and commenced practice in Mayfield. His legal work quickly brought him into local public affairs, and he established himself as a practicing attorney in Graves County, where he would remain professionally and politically active for the rest of his life.

Boone’s judicial and political career began early. In 1854 he was elected judge of the Graves County court, a position of considerable local authority over county administration and judicial matters. He was reelected to that office in 1858 and served continuously until 1861, when he resigned. That same year, as the Civil War commenced and Kentucky’s political situation grew increasingly complex, Boone entered state-level politics. He served as a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1861, participating in the legislature during a period when Kentucky, though officially neutral at the outset of the conflict, was deeply divided in its loyalties.

Following the Civil War, Boone continued his judicial service. He was appointed or elected circuit judge for the first judicial district of Kentucky, serving from 1868 to 1874. In this capacity he presided over a broad range of civil and criminal cases in a region still adjusting to the legal and social changes of the Reconstruction era. His tenure as circuit judge enhanced his reputation as a jurist and helped to position him for higher office.

Boone advanced to national office as a member of the Democratic Party, which dominated Kentucky politics in the postwar period. He was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1879. Representing a western Kentucky district, he served during the closing years of Reconstruction and the beginning of the so‑called “Gilded Age,” when issues of federal spending, internal improvements, and reconciliation between North and South were prominent. Boone did not seek renomination in 1878 and thus concluded his congressional service at the end of his second term.

After leaving Congress, Boone returned to state service in a regulatory capacity. He was appointed chairman of the Kentucky Railroad Commission, serving from 1882 to 1886. In this role he oversaw aspects of the regulation of railroad operations within the state at a time when railroads were central to Kentucky’s economic development and to broader debates over rates, competition, and public oversight of private enterprise. His work on the commission reflected the growing importance of state regulatory bodies in the late nineteenth century.

Boone remained a resident of Mayfield throughout his career and life. He died there on January 26, 1886. He was interred in Mayfield Cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky, closing a lifetime of service that spanned local, state, and national office and reflected the political and legal transformations of Kentucky in the nineteenth century.