Louis Emory McComas (1846-1907)

Louis Emory McComas was born October 28, 1846 near Williamsport, Maryland where his father was in the hardware business. He attended Saint James' College and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1866 in 1863. His cousin, Henry Frederick Angle, was one of his classmates. They both became members of the Belle Lettres Literary Society. While Louis joined Phi Kappa Sigma, Henry became a member of Sigma Chi.

Louis graduated with his class in 1866 and then studied law, being admitted to the Maryland bar in 1868. His influential political career began when he was first elected to Congress in 1883 as a Republican and served several terms until his defeat in 1891. He was secretary of the Republican National Committee during the election campaign of 1892. President Benjamin Harrison named him, meanwhile, to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. He was subsequently elected to the Senate for a six year term in 1899. At the time he was a professor at Georgetown Law School and continued to teach two courses a semester throughout his term in the Senate. He retired from the Senate and President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to his last post as a justice of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in 1905.

In September 1875, he married Leah Humrichouse and the couple had two daughters. Both a granddaughter and a great-grandson later served as Maryland representatives to Congress. He married Mrs. Hebe Muir in 1907, following the death of his first wife. Unfortunately, he contracted pneumonia on a European honeymoon; he returned to Washington, D.C. and died of heart failure on November 10, 1907. He is buried in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Senate Historical Office