Biographical Sketches of Members of Congress, Members of the Legislature,
Officers of the State Governement and judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals,
West Virigina, 1917
Source:
West Virginia Legislative Hand Book and Manual and Official Register, 1917,
Compiled and Edited by John T. Harris, Clerk of the Senate,
The Tribune Printing Co., Charleston, West Va.
pgs. 719 – 770
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
pg. 719
HOWARD SUTHERLAND (Republican), of Elkins, was born September. 8,
1865, near Kirkwood, St. Louis County, Mo.; attended the public schools’of
St. Louis County and city; was graduated with A. B. degree from Westminster
College, Fulton, Mo., class of 1889; edited a Republican newspaper at Fulton
immediately after graduation; went to Washington in March, 1890, as clerk,
at $1,000, in Census Office; being promoted through intervening grades, became
chief of population division in February, 1891; also studied law at Columbian
University; resigned, and in March, 1893, moved to West Virginia; is married,
and is in the timber and coal lands business. He is a member of a number of
fraternal and benevolent societies; was State senator of West Virginia 1908-
1912; was chairman of West Virginia good roads commission, which framed the
first laws for permanent improvement of West Virginia roads; vice president
West Virginia Board of Trade; director Davis Trust Co.; president board of
trustees Davis and Elkins Presbyterian College; was elected to the Sixty-third
Congress, and re-elected to the Sixty-fourth Congress; was elected to the United
States Senate November 7, 1916, receiving 144,243 votes, to 138,585 for W. E.
Chilton, Democrat, and 4,881 for G. A. Gneiser, Socialist, for six-year term ending
March 3, 1923. Committee assignments Sixty-fifth Congress: Additional
Accommodations for the Library of Congress, Census, Geological Survey, In-
dustrial Expositions, Investigate Trespassers upon Indian Lands, Military
Affairs, Mines and Mining, Public Buildings and Grounds.
Submitted by: Valerie Crook