Representative James Bradford Foley

James Bradford Foley (October 18, 1807 – December 5, 1886) was an American politician and farmer who served one term as a U.S. Representative from Indiana from 1857 to 1859. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented his Indiana constituents in Congress during a turbulent period in the decade preceding the American Civil War, participating in the national legislative process at a time of intensifying sectional conflict.

Foley was born near Dover, Mason County, Kentucky, on October 18, 1807. He received only a limited formal education, a common circumstance on the early American frontier, and entered the workforce at a young age. In 1823 he was employed on a flatboat on the Mississippi River, an experience that exposed him to the commercial life of the interior river system and the broader economic currents of the expanding United States.

In 1834 Foley moved to Greensburg, Decatur County, Indiana, which would remain his home for the rest of his life. Upon settling there, he engaged in mercantile pursuits from 1834 to 1837, participating in the local commercial economy during a period of rapid growth and development in the state. After leaving mercantile work, he turned to agriculture and became a farmer, a vocation he would return to repeatedly over the course of his life.

Foley soon entered public service in Decatur County. He served as Treasurer of Decatur County from 1841 to 1843, managing county finances and gaining experience in local administration. His growing prominence in Indiana public life led to his selection as a member of the Indiana state constitutional convention in 1850, where he took part in the framing of the state’s revised constitution. In 1852 he was appointed commander of the Fourth Brigade of the Indiana State militia, reflecting both his standing in the community and the importance of organized militia forces in mid-nineteenth-century state governance and defense.

As a Democrat, Foley was elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress and served as a U.S. Representative from Indiana from March 4, 1857, to March 3, 1859. During this single term in the U.S. House of Representatives, he represented Indiana’s interests in Washington at a time marked by national debates over slavery, territorial expansion, and states’ rights. His service in Congress formed the apex of a public career that linked local, state, and national politics, and he contributed to the legislative process as part of the Democratic Party’s delegation during this critical pre–Civil War era.

After leaving Congress at the close of his term in 1859, Foley returned to Decatur County and resumed his agricultural pursuits. He continued to live in Greensburg, remaining identified primarily as a farmer and local figure rather than seeking further national office. He spent his later years in the community he had helped to shape through both his local offices and his brief but notable service in the federal legislature.

James Bradford Foley died in Greensburg, Indiana, on December 5, 1886. He was interred in South Park Cemetery in Greensburg. His life reflected the trajectory of many nineteenth-century American politicians who rose from modest educational backgrounds and frontier occupations to positions of public trust at the county, state, and national levels, and then returned to private life in the communities from which they had emerged.