Representative John Baldwin Raymond

John Baldwin Raymond (December 5, 1844 – January 3, 1886) was a Delegate from Dakota Territory to the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Lockport, Niagara County, New York, and spent his early childhood there before moving with his parents in 1853 to Tazewell County, Illinois. Growing up on the Illinois frontier in the decade before the Civil War, he was educated in the local schools and came of age in a region deeply affected by national debates over slavery and Union.

During the American Civil War, Raymond enlisted in the Union Army and served in the Thirty-first Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. This regiment saw extensive service in the Western Theater, and Raymond participated in several major campaigns. He distinguished himself for gallantry at the Battle of Vicksburg, a pivotal Union victory in Mississippi, and was promoted to the rank of captain for his conduct in that engagement. His wartime experience and advancement in rank helped establish his reputation for leadership and public service in the postwar period.

Following the war, Raymond settled in Mississippi during the era of Reconstruction. He became active in journalism and public affairs, publishing the Mississippi Pilot newspaper at Jackson, Mississippi. Through this paper he participated in the political and social debates of Reconstruction, aligning with Republican efforts to reshape Southern institutions after the conflict. In addition to his work in journalism, he served as assistant State treasurer of Mississippi, a position that placed him within the financial administration of the state government at a time of significant political transition and economic strain.

Raymond later moved to the northern plains, where the federal government was organizing and administering the Dakota Territory. In 1877 he was appointed United States marshal of Dakota Territory, with headquarters initially at Yankton, then the territorial capital, and later at Fargo as settlement and administrative centers shifted northward. As U.S. marshal, he was responsible for enforcing federal law across a vast and rapidly developing frontier region, working amid growing railroad construction, expanding agricultural settlement, and increasing interaction and conflict between settlers and Native American populations.

Building on his territorial prominence, Raymond entered elective politics in Dakota Territory. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected as a Delegate from Dakota Territory to the United States House of Representatives and served in the Forty-eighth Congress from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1885. As a territorial delegate, he could participate in debates and serve on committees but did not have a vote on the House floor. During his term he advocated for the interests of Dakota Territory, including issues related to land policy, transportation, and the eventual admission of the territory to statehood. In 1884 he sought renomination but was unsuccessful, reflecting the competitive and factional nature of territorial politics in the years preceding the division of Dakota Territory into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota.

After leaving Congress, Raymond remained in the northern plains and turned his attention to agriculture, engaging in wheat farming. This work placed him among the many settlers and entrepreneurs who were transforming the upper Midwest into a major grain-producing region in the late nineteenth century. He made his home in Fargo, a growing railroad and commercial center in what would become North Dakota, and continued to be identified with the region’s development.

John Baldwin Raymond died in Fargo on January 3, 1886. Following his death, his remains were transported to Washington, D.C., where he was interred in the public vault in Rock Creek Cemetery. His career, spanning military service in the Civil War, Reconstruction-era public office in Mississippi, federal law enforcement in Dakota Territory, and service as a territorial delegate in Congress, reflected the broader currents of national expansion, sectional reconciliation, and frontier development in the United States during the mid- to late nineteenth century.