Douglas Leffingwell
American politician
Douglas Leffingwell (May 17, 1826 – April 3, 1900) was an American politician.
He was born in Ellsworth, Ohio, on May 17, 1826. Between 1946 and 1852, he lived in New York, and was active in the Mercantile Library Association. Leffingwell returned to Ohio and studied law in Cleveland. Upon passing the bar in 1858, Leffingwell moved to McGregor, Iowa. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, he organized a company that saw action in the Battle of Shiloh, where Leffingwell was injured. Leffingwell married McGregor native Sara Josephine Vanderwerker in 1865.
Politically, Leffingwell was an Independent Republican. He served McGregor as mayor and municipal judge. Between 1866 and 1868, Leffingwell held the District 46 seat in the Iowa House of Representatives.
“Douglas Leffingwell” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Douglas, Leffingwell and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Douglas Leffingwell” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Douglas, Leffingwell and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116935259. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1900, 1946 and 1852.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Douglas Leffingwell”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Douglas Leffingwell primary sources, Douglas Leffingwell archive and Douglas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Douglas Leffingwell”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Douglas Leffingwell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.