Representative Lawrence Strother Trimble

Lawrence Strother Trimble (August 26, 1825 – August 9, 1904) was a United States congressman from Kentucky, a Kentucky judge, and later a New Mexican politician, rancher, and lawyer. He was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, to the farming family of James and Harriet (Triplett) Trimble. Raised in a rural environment, he completed his preparatory studies in his native county and subsequently read law there. Trimble was admitted to the bar at the age of 22, beginning a legal career that would serve as the foundation for his later judicial and political roles.

In 1847, Trimble moved to Paducah, Kentucky, where he opened a law practice and entered public life. Establishing himself as a practicing attorney, he soon became active in state politics and was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, serving as a representative in the state legislature from 1851 to 1853. Like many Kentucky politicians of his era, Trimble was a slaveholder up to the Civil War, a fact that reflected both his personal circumstances and the broader social and economic structure of the region in the antebellum period.

Trimble’s legal and political reputation led to his election in 1856 as judge of the equity and criminal court in the First Judicial District of Kentucky. He served on that court until 1860, presiding over both civil and criminal matters at a time of rising sectional tension in the United States. In 1860 he left the bench to become president of the New Orleans & Ohio Railroad Company, a position he held from 1860 until 1865. His leadership of the railroad spanned the Civil War years, when transportation infrastructure was of strategic and economic importance to both North and South.

At the close of the Civil War, Trimble transitioned to national office. A Democrat, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky’s 1st Congressional District and served three consecutive terms from March 4, 1865, to March 3, 1871, in the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first Congresses. Representing a western Kentucky district during the turbulent Reconstruction era, he aligned with the Democratic opposition to many Republican Reconstruction policies. In 1868, he was one of the 47 representatives who voted against the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, reflecting his party’s stance on executive authority and Reconstruction. In 1870, however, Trimble failed to secure the Democratic Party’s renomination for his seat, bringing his congressional service to an end in March 1871.

After leaving Congress, Trimble eventually sought new opportunities in the American Southwest. In 1879, he moved to Albuquerque, in what was then the Territory of New Mexico, where he resumed the practice of law and again entered territorial politics. Drawing on his prior legislative and congressional experience, he became a prominent Democratic figure in the territory. In 1889, he was elected as the only Democrat to the New Mexico Constitutional Convention, representing Bernalillo County. At that convention he delivered the opening address, underscoring his stature among the delegates and his role in early efforts to frame a constitution for eventual statehood.

Following the convention, Trimble retired from active political life and devoted himself to his ranching interests in New Mexico. He spent his later years on his ranch near Albuquerque, remaining a respected elder statesman of both Kentucky and New Mexico public life. Lawrence Strother Trimble died in Albuquerque on August 9, 1904. He was interred in Fairview Cemetery off Yale Boulevard in Albuquerque, closing a long career that had spanned state and territorial politics, the federal legislature, the judiciary, and the railroad industry.