Israel Wilson Durham
State Senator of Pennsylvania (1855-1909)
Israel Wilson Durham (24 October 1855 – 28 June 1909) was an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Republican member of the Pennsylvania Senate for the 6th district from 1897 to 1898 and the 2nd district from 1898 to 1899. He was a political boss of Philadelphia's 7th ward and also briefly the president and principal owner of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team in 1909.
Early life
Durham was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Thomas and Jane Durham. He received a public school education and briefly entered the cloth business with J.B. Ellison & Company. He apprenticed to Silas Emory, a brick-layer for two years. He later joined his father's flour dealer business as a buyer and salesman.
Career
From an early age he turned to politics, identifying himself with the Republican Party, then dominant in Philadelphia.
In 1885, he was elected police magistrate; he was re-elected in 1890. In 1897, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate from the 6th District to fill the unexpired term of Boies Penrose, who had risen to the United States Senate. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention from Pennsylvania in 1900, 1904, and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “Israel Wilson Durham” 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.