Representative Solomon Bundy

Solomon Bundy (May 22, 1823 – January 13, 1889) was an American attorney and Republican politician who served one term as a United States Representative from New York from 1877 to 1879. He was a prominent legal figure in Chenango County and earlier held the office of district attorney there before his election to Congress.

Bundy was born on May 22, 1823, in Oxford, Chenango County, New York, during a period of growth and development in western and central New York. He was educated locally and attended Oxford Academy, a notable regional institution that prepared many young men for professional careers. After his schooling, he remained in the community, reflecting the strong local ties that would characterize his later public service.

Before entering the legal profession, Bundy taught school for several years, a common path for educated young men of his era and a role that helped establish his reputation in Oxford and the surrounding area. While teaching, he began reading law, following the traditional apprenticeship model of legal education. During this period he also entered public service at the local level, serving as a justice of the peace and as clerk of the Board of Supervisors of Chenango County, positions that provided him with early experience in local governance and administration.

Bundy was admitted to the bar in 1859 and commenced the practice of law in Oxford, New York. His legal abilities and growing prominence in the county led to his election as district attorney of Chenango County, a post he held from 1862 to 1865. As district attorney during the Civil War era, he was responsible for prosecuting criminal cases and representing the interests of the state in the county courts, further solidifying his standing as a leading attorney and public official in the region. After his term as district attorney, he continued in private practice, maintaining his law office in Oxford.

A member of the Republican Party, Bundy was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress as a Representative from New York, serving from March 4, 1877, to March 3, 1879. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, when the nation was grappling with issues of economic adjustment, civil rights, and political realignment. As a member of the House of Representatives, Solomon Bundy contributed to the legislative process, participated in the democratic governance of the country, and represented the interests of his New York constituents. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1878, thus limiting his congressional service to a single term.

Following the conclusion of his term in Congress, Bundy returned to Oxford and resumed the practice of law. He continued to be a respected figure in his community, drawing on his long experience as an attorney and former public official. He lived out the remainder of his life in Oxford, maintaining his professional and personal ties to the town where he had been born, educated, and had built his career.

Bundy married and had a family, and his descendants went on to play notable roles in American public life. His son McGeorge Bundy became an attorney and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he settled and established his own legal and family life. McGeorge’s son, Harvey Hollister Bundy, graduated from Yale University and studied law at Harvard Law School before settling in Boston. Harvey married, had a family, and served at high levels of the federal government alongside Secretary of War and later Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, under Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harvey’s two sons, William Putnam Bundy and McGeorge Bundy, both became attorneys and served in intelligence roles during World War II; they later emerged as influential policy advisers to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, particularly in matters related to the Vietnam War. In a later generation, Solomon Bundy’s three-times-great-grandson, Jake Auchincloss, entered public service and became a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district, extending the family’s long association with national politics across party lines and into the twenty-first century.

Solomon Bundy died in Oxford, New York, on January 13, 1889. He was interred in Riverview Cemetery in Oxford, closing a life closely bound to the legal, civic, and political life of Chenango County and leaving a legacy that would resonate through multiple generations of public service at the national level.