Ira G. Hersey, courtesy Maine State Archives
(1858-1943) a U.S. Representative, was born in Hodgdon on March 31, 1858, attended the public schools and Ricker Classical Institute in Houlton. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1880 and began his practice in Houlton.
An unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Maine in 1886, he became a member of the Maine House of Representatives (1909-1912) and served in the Maine State Senate (1913-1916) and was president of that body in 1915 and 1916.
Elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1917-March 3, 1929), Hersey was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings (Sixty-sixth Congress).
He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1926 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against George W. English, judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois.
An unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1928, he was Judge of Probate for Aroostook County from 1934 to 1942, when he retired and moved to Washington, D.C., where he died on May 6, 1943, with interment in Evergreen Cemetery in Houlton.
Additional resources
Hersey, Ira Greenleaf. Hale and Fernald: A Tribute. [Bangor Public Library]
Hersey, Ira Greenleaf. Has Politics been Adjourned in Congress?: speeches of Hon. Ira G. Hersey of Maine in the House of Representatives June 22, 25, 28, and July 2, 1918. Washington. 1918.
Ira G. Hersey; An Appreciation. Waterville, Me. The Waterville Sentinel Publishing Company. 1916. American statesmen series, no. 10000-z. [Bangor Public Library]