Hancock, John

Life Span
to
    Full name
    John Hancock
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    1
    Family
    John Allen Hancock (father), Sarah Ryan (mother), Susan E. Richardson (wife, 1855)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    University of Tennessee at Knoxville
    Occupation
    Politician
    Attorney or Judge
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Union (Unconditional Union, National Union)
    Government
    US House of Representatives
    State legislature
    State judge
    Other state government

    John Hancock (Congressional Biographical Directory)

    Reference
    HANCOCK, John, a Representative from Texas; born near Bellefonte, Jackson County, Ala., October 24, 1824; attended the public schools and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1846; settled in Austin, Tex., in 1847 and practiced his profession there until August 1851; served as judge of the second judicial district of Texas from 1851 to 1855, when he resigned; resumed the practice of law and engaged in planting and stock raising; member of the State house of representatives in 1860 and 1861; refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States and was expelled from the legislature; took up his residence in the North until the conclusion of the war, when he returned to Texas; member of the State constitutional convention in 1866; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-second, Forty-third, and Forty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1871-March 3, 1877); unsuccessful candidate for renomination; elected to the Forty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1885); was not a candidate for renomination; resumed the practice of law; died in Austin, Tex., July 19, 1893; interment in Oakwood Cemetery.
    "Hancock, John," Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 to Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000150.

    John Hancock (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    In 1860 [John] Hancock was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. A Unionist fiercely opposed to secession, he was expelled from the state legislature in 1861 for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy when Texas left the Union. Hancock thereupon continued his law practice. Dressed in a frock coat and tall hat, his appearance suited a successful lawyer who had become familiar with the land laws of Texas. In 1864 he defended four men arrested as Unionists. After securing their release and declining to fight in the Civil War, Hancock fled to Mexico and subsequently to Kentucky and New York to avoid conscription and to await the end of the war. Following General Robert E. Lee's surrender and the conclusion of the conflict in 1865, Hancock returned to Texas, where he took an active role in Reconstruction.
    Leonard Schlup, "Hancock, John," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00463.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Hancock, John," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/12006.