Jeter Connelly Pritchard

Jeter Connelly Pritchard (July 12, 1857 – April 10, 1921) was a lawyer, newspaperman, United States Senator and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and of the United States Circuit Courts for the Fourth Circuit and previously was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Earlier in his political career he served in the North Carolina House of Representatives. He was a Republican who was part of the populist fusion political wave before later opposing civil rights for African Americans.

Early life and education

Born on July 12, 1857, in Jonesboro, Washington County, Tennessee, He attended the Martins Creek Academy in Tennessee. He became joint editor and owner of the Roan Mountain Republican. He was Chairman of the Committee on Civil Service and Retrenchment for the 54th and 55th United States Congresses and Chairman of the Committee on Patents for the 56th and 57th United States Congresses.

Pritchard began reversing his views on civil rights in 1900, becoming a lily-white and opposing black officeholders.

Federal judicial service

Pritchard was nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt on November 10, 1903, to an Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (now the United States District Court for the District of Columbia) vacated by Associate Justice Harry M. Clabaugh.

Pritchard was nominated by President Roosevelt on April 27, 1904, to a joint seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the Fourth Circuit vacated by Judge Charles Henry Simonton.

Family

Senator Pritchard married Augusta L. Ray in 1877 and they became the parents of three sons and a daughter—William D. (an army officer killed in the Philippines in 1904), George M. Pritchard (a politician in the Republican Party),