Senator Henry Roberts Pease

Henry Roberts Pease (February 19, 1835 – January 2, 1907) was an American lawyer, educator, and Republican politician who served as a United States senator from Mississippi during the Reconstruction era and later as a member of the South Dakota Senate. Over the course of his public career, he held a series of important educational and administrative posts, including service as Mississippi’s first state superintendent of education and as receiver of the United States General Land Office in Dakota Territory.

Pease was born in Winsted, Connecticut, on February 19, 1835, the son of Sylvanus Pease and Emeline (Roberts) Pease. He attended local schools in Winsted and pursued further studies at Goshen Academy in Goshen, Connecticut. Beginning in 1848, while still a young man, he taught school, an early engagement with education that would shape much of his later public life. After several years as a teacher, he decided to pursue a legal career, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1859. He then commenced the practice of law in Washington, D.C., combining his legal training with growing involvement in national affairs on the eve of the Civil War.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Pease entered the Union Army in 1862 as a private and rose to the rank of captain. During and after the conflict, he became deeply involved in the educational administration of the postwar South under federal authority. While Louisiana was under military rule, he served as superintendent of education for that state, overseeing efforts to organize and expand schooling during Reconstruction. In 1867 he was appointed superintendent of education of freedmen in Mississippi, a position that placed him at the center of efforts to provide schooling for formerly enslaved people. Building on this work, Mississippi voters elected him state superintendent of education in 1869, making him the first to hold that office under the state’s Reconstruction government.

Pease’s prominence in Mississippi Republican politics led to his selection for national office. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Adelbert Ames, and he served from February 3, 1874, to March 3, 1875. His term in the Senate, which is sometimes broadly referenced as 1873 to 1875, coincided with a critical phase of Reconstruction, during which he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of Mississippi’s constituents in the upper chamber of Congress. A member of the Republican Party, Henry Roberts Pease contributed to the democratic and legislative processes during his single term in office and chose not to run for reelection at the conclusion of his appointed term.

After leaving the Senate, Pease continued to hold federal and educational posts in Mississippi. In 1875 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him postmaster of Vicksburg, Mississippi, a position that reflected both his party loyalty and his administrative experience. During this period he also established and edited the Mississippi Educational Journal, further demonstrating his long-standing commitment to public education and educational reform in the South during and after Reconstruction.

In 1881 Pease moved to Dakota and settled in Watertown, in what is now South Dakota. There he was appointed receiver of the United States General Land Office, serving from 1881 to 1885 and overseeing federal land transactions in a region undergoing rapid settlement and development. Remaining active in public life, he later entered territorial and then state politics. From 1895 to 1897 he served one term as a member of the South Dakota Senate, representing the 34th district, which included Marshall and Roberts Counties, thereby extending his legislative career into the era of South Dakota statehood.

Henry Roberts Pease died in Watertown, South Dakota, on January 2, 1907. He was interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in Watertown. His career spanned teaching, law, military service, educational administration, and legislative office in two different states, marking him as a significant figure in the political and educational history of the Reconstruction South and the developing Upper Midwest.