Oscar Sherman Gifford Biography


	This biography extracted from "Biographical Directory of the 
	American Congress 1774-1961", published by the U. S. Government 
	Printing Office. Pages 943-943.

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GIFFORD, Oscar Sherman, a Delegate from the Territory of Dakota and a 
Representative from South Dakota; born in Watertown, Jefferson County, 
N. Y., October 20, 1842; moved with his parents to Wisconsin, who 
settled in Rock County, thence to Brown County, Ill., in 1853; attended 
the common schools and the local academy at Beloit, Wis.; during the 
Civil War served in the Union Army as a private in the Elgin (Ill.) 
Battery 1863-1865; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1871 and 
commenced practice in Canton, Territory of Dakota (now South Dakota); 
district attorney for Lincoln County in 1874; mayor of Canton in 1881 
and 1882; member of the State constitutional convention of South Dakota 
which convened at Sioux Falls September 7, 1883; elected as a 
Republican a Delegate to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 
4, 1885-March 3, 1889); upon the admission of South Dakota as a State 
into the Union was elected as a Representative to the Fifty-first 
Congress and served from November 2, 1889, to March 3, 1891; was not a 
candidate for renomination in 1890; resumed the practice of law in 
Canton, S. Dak., where he died on January 16, 1913; interment in Forest 
Hill Cemetery.