 |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
||||
| Date Born: May 13, 1895 |
 |
Date Died: November 7, 1954 |
|||
| Place Born: Durham County, NC |
Place Buried: Mount Tabor Church Cemetery in Durham County, NC |
||||
| Residence: Durham, NC |
Occupation: 1st Lieutenant in US Army, Lawyer |
||||
|
William Bradley Umstead (13 May 1895 – 7 November 1954) was a US Senator and the Democratic governor of the state of North Carolina from 1953 to 1954. In 1916, Umstead earned a bachelor's degree in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught high school history for approximately one school year before enlisting in the Army after the US entry into World War I. He served as an officer and saw combat in France; Umstead was discharged in 1919 as a first lieutenant. He almost immediately entered law school at Trinity College (today, Duke University). Umstead was a prosecutor for most of his legal career and served as the elected solicitor (today called District Attorney) for a five-county district from 1927 to 1933. He served from 1933 to 1939 in the United States House of Representatives, choosing not to seek re-election in 1938. Umstead was appointed to fill a vacant United States Senate seat in 1946. Defeated for a Senate term of his own in 1948, Umstead ran for Governor in 1952 and won. However, on 8 January 1953, only two days after his inauguration, Umstead was crippled by a heart attack. He was constantly in ill health until his death nearly two years afterwards, upon which he was succeeded as governor by Luther H. Hodges. Umstead, William Bradley, a Representative and a Senator from North Carolina; born on a farm in Mangum Township, Durham County, NC, May 13, 1895; attended the county public schools and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1916; taught school in Kinston, NC, in 1916 and 1917; during the First World War served as a lieutenant in the United States Army 1917-1919, with service overseas; studied law at Trinity College (now Duke University) 1919-1921; admitted to the bar in 1920 and commenced practice in Durham, NC, in 1921; prosecuting attorney of the Durham County Recorders Court 1922-1926; solicitor of the tenth judicial district 1927-1933; member of the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, and Seventy-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1939); was not a candidate for renomination in 1938; resumed the practice of law in Durham, N.C.; appointed on December 18, 1946, to the US Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Josiah W. Bailey and served from December 18, 1946, to December 30, 1948; was an unsuccessful candidate for the nomination to fill the vacancy and also for the full term; resumed the practice of law; Governor of North Carolina from January 1953 until his death in Durham, N.C., November 7, 1954; interment in Mount Tabor Church Cemetery in Mangum Township, Durham County, N.C. |
|||||
| << Last Governor - William Kerr Scott | |||||
 |
 |
© 2007 - J.D. Lewis - PO Box 1188 - Little River, SC 29566 - All Rights Reserved