Researching William Armstrong

William H. Armstrong was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Princeton College in 1847. He studied law, was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Williamsport. He served in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1860 and 1861. He declined a commission as president judge of the twenty-sixth judicial circuit of Pennsylvania in 1862.

Armstrong was elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1870. He declined the office of commissioner of Indian affairs tendered by President Ulysses S. Grant. He served as commissioner of railroads from 1882 to 1885. He resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, until 1898, when he retired from active business pursuits. He moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he died in 1919. Interment in Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.

Armstrong was born in 1782 in Lisburn, County Antrim, Kingdom of Ireland (in present-day Northern Ireland), and emigrated to the United States in 1792. He studied law under Charles Magill, became a lawyer, and settled in Hampshire County, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). Armstrong served in a number of civil service positions, including postmaster of Paddytown (present-day Keyser); U.S. tax collector appointed by President James Madison; director of the Bank of the Valley of Virginia; member of the Virginia Board of Public Works from 1822 to 1823; justice of the peace for Hampshire County from 1820 to 1852; and Hampshire County sheriff in 1843. Armstrong was chosen as a presidential elector for Virginia in the 1820 and 1824 U.S. presidential elections.

He was elected to two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates and four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, two as an Adamsite Democratic-Republican and two as a National Republican. In Congress, he assisted in passing a bill to appropriate funds to construct the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in 1828. Following his tenure in Congress, Armstrong engaged in the tavern business and operated the Armstrong House hotel in Romney. In 1862, he relocated to Keyser, where he died in 1865.

He was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, the son of Reverend John J. Armstrong and Harriet ELlen Layton. Armstrong was educated at the Colchester County Academy and Dalhousie University. In 1916, he married Tena M. Williamson. He ran unsuccessfully for a federal seat in 1935. Armstrong served as registrar of deeds for Colchester County from 1928 until his death in Truro at the age of 70.

He was born in Peterborough, Ontario, the son of William Armstrong, a native of Ireland, and Elizabeth Brown, and was educated there. He moved to Grass Valley, California, where he was involved in mining, with his family in 1852. In 1858, the family moved to Langley, British Columbia. The following year, Armstrong settled in Queensborough (later New Westminster) and opened a general store. He was elected to the first municipal council for New Westminster in 1860. In 1861, he married Honor Chenhalls Ladner. Armstrong was president of the municipal council (mayor) for New Westminster from 1866 to 1867 and from 1869 to 1871. He served in the provincial cabinet as Minister of Finance and Agriculture from 1872 to 1876. Armstrong was defeated when he ran for the New Westminster City seat in the assembly in 1878. He was reelected in a by-election held in 1881 after Ebenezer Brown resigned his seat due to ill health. From 1881 to 1882, he served in the cabinet as Provincial Secretary. In 1884, he resigned his seat in the assembly to accept an appointment as sheriff for Westminster County.

Armstrong built a flour mill at New Westminster in 1867 and a sawmill in 1876. He also served as a justice of the peace.

He died in New Westminster at the age of 89.