Representative William Evans Arthur

William Evans Arthur (March 3, 1825 – May 18, 1897) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Kentucky who served two terms in the United States Congress from 1871 to 1875. Over the course of a long legal and judicial career, he held a series of important public offices in Kentucky and participated in the national legislative process during a pivotal period in American history.

Arthur was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 3, 1825, the son of William and Eliza (Parsons) Arthur. In 1832 his family moved across the Ohio River to Covington, Kentucky, which would remain his principal home for the rest of his life. Two years after the move, his father died, leaving the family without its patriarch while Arthur was still a child. He received his early education in private schools and from private tutors, studying both in Covington and in Harford County, Maryland, before returning to Kentucky to prepare for a legal career.

Pursuing the law through the traditional method of reading in established offices, Arthur studied under two prominent Kentucky lawyers and statesmen, John W. Stevenson and James Turner Morehead. After completing his legal training, he was admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced the practice of law in Covington. His professional competence and growing local reputation soon led him into public service and electoral politics within the Democratic Party.

Arthur’s personal life was closely connected to a notable Kentucky political family. In 1855 he married Addie Southgate, daughter of former Congressman William Wright Southgate. After Addie’s death in 1858, Arthur married her younger sister, Etha Southgate, in December 1860. With Etha he had two children, a son, Sidney, and a daughter, May. These family ties further linked Arthur to the political and social networks of northern Kentucky during the turbulent years preceding and following the Civil War.

Arthur’s public career began in earnest when he was elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Kentucky’s ninth judicial district in 1856, a position he held for a six-year term. In the presidential election of 1860 he served as a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane, aligning himself with the Southern wing of the divided Democratic Party on the eve of the Civil War. After the war, in 1866, he was elected criminal judge of the ninth circuit, serving on the bench until 1868, when he resigned. These roles established him as a significant legal and political figure in his region.

In 1870 Arthur was elected as a Democrat to represent Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served in the Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses from March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1875, a significant period in American history marked by Reconstruction and the continuing adjustment of the Union after the Civil War. As a member of the House of Representatives, he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Kentucky constituents. During his two terms in office he served on the House Committees on Elections and on Railways and Canals, contributing to the legislative process in areas central to the political and economic development of the era. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1874 and left Congress at the close of his second term.

Following the expiration of his congressional service, Arthur returned to Covington and resumed the practice of law. His legal expertise and judicial experience again led to the bench when, in August 1886, he was elected judge of the twelfth judicial circuit of Kentucky. He served in that capacity until the expiration of his term on January 1, 1893. After leaving the circuit judgeship, he once more engaged in private legal practice in Covington, remaining active in his profession until the end of his life.

William Evans Arthur died in Covington, Kentucky, on May 18, 1897. He was interred in Linden Grove Cemetery in Covington. His career, spanning roles as attorney, prosecutor, judge, presidential elector, and member of Congress, reflected the trajectory of a nineteenth-century Kentucky Democrat who played a steady, if regionally focused, part in both state and national affairs.