Senator Daniel Darwin Pratt

Daniel Darwin Pratt (October 26, 1813 – June 17, 1877) was a United States senator from Indiana and a member of the Republican Party who served one term in the Senate during the Reconstruction era. He was born in Palermo, Waldo County, Maine, and in his youth moved with his parents to Fenner, Madison County, New York. There he attended the public schools and Cazenovia Seminary, receiving a preparatory education that led to his matriculation at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1831, laying the academic foundation for his later legal and political career.

After completing his college studies, Pratt moved west to Indiana in 1832. In his early years in the state he taught school, reflecting the limited professional opportunities on the frontier and his own classical education. In 1834 he settled in Indianapolis, where he was employed in the office of the Secretary of State of Indiana, gaining early exposure to public administration and state government. During this period he studied law, and in 1836 he was admitted to the bar. He then moved to Logansport, Cass County, Indiana, where he commenced the practice of law that would remain the core of his professional life.

Pratt quickly became a prominent attorney in Logansport and was active in civic and fraternal affairs. He became a member of Tipton Lodge No. 33, Free and Accepted Masons, in Logansport, being raised in the lodge in 1837. He later served as Worshipful Master of the lodge in 1844, indicating a position of leadership and respect within the Masonic fraternity. In his legal practice he eventually formed a partnership with his nephew, Daniel P. Baldwin, who would later serve as Attorney General of Indiana from 1880 to 1882, further extending the family’s influence in the legal and political life of the state.

Pratt’s formal political career began at the state level. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives and served in that body in 1851 and again in 1853. His legislative service in Indianapolis coincided with a period of constitutional revision and political realignment in Indiana, and it helped establish his reputation as a capable lawmaker. As the national debate over slavery and Union intensified in the 1850s and 1860s, Pratt aligned with the emerging Republican Party, which became the dominant political force in Indiana during and after the Civil War.

In 1868 Pratt was elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress as a U.S. Representative from Indiana. However, before the beginning of his House term, he was chosen by the Indiana legislature to represent the state in the United States Senate. Consequently, he resigned his seat in the House of Representatives on January 27, 1869, before Congress convened, in order to take up the higher office. He entered the Senate on March 4, 1869, and served one full term, from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1875. His tenure in the Senate thus coincided with a significant period in American history, the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, during which he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Indiana constituents as a member of the Republican majority.

During his service in the United States Senate, Daniel Darwin Pratt played a notable role in pension and veterans’ affairs. He served as chairman of the Committee on Pensions during the Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses, a position that placed him at the center of legislative efforts to provide for Union veterans and their families in the aftermath of the Civil War. As a senator from Indiana, he contributed to debates over Reconstruction policy, federal finance, and the readjustment of the nation to peace, reflecting the priorities of his party and his state during a transformative period in national politics.

After leaving the Senate in March 1875, Pratt continued his service to the federal government in an executive capacity. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1875, placing him in charge of the federal agency responsible for the collection of internal taxes, including those on income, spirits, and tobacco. He held this office in 1875 and 1876, overseeing important aspects of federal fiscal administration during the postwar era, before returning to private life. Daniel Darwin Pratt died in Logansport, Indiana, on June 17, 1877. He was interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in Logansport, closing a career that spanned law, state legislation, national lawmaking, and high federal administrative service.