Governor Andrew Jackson Montague

ANDREW JACKSON MONTAGUE was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. He graduated from Richmond College in 1882, after which he was a private tutor in Orange County, Virginia before entering the University of Virginia Law School, where he received his LL.B. degree in 1885. He practiced law in Danville and was appointed Commonwealth’s Attorney for the Western District of Virginia in 1892, serving in that position for five years. He went on to become Attorney General of Virginia in 1897 before being elected governor in 1902. During his gubernatorial administration education and highways were major concerns, and legislation was approved imposing strict licensing regulations for saloons, making employers liable for certain job-related injuries to their workers and establishing a primary plan for the nomination of U.S. Senators. After leaving office, Montague served as an American delegate to the Third Conference of American Republics at Rio de Janeiro in 1906, taught at the Richmond College Department of Law from 1906 to 1909, was a delegate to the Third International Conference on Maritime Law at Brussels, Belgum in 1909 and 1910, and served as a trustee of the Carnegie Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was also vice president of the Endowment, and a member of its executive committee from 1911 to 1935, assistant treasurer from 1917 to 1923, and treasurer from 1923 to 1919. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1912, he served as a member of Congress until his death.