Robert Brank Vance (Congressional Biographical Directory)

VANCE, Robert Brank,  (nephew of Robert Brank Vance [1793-1827] and brother of Zebulon Baird Vance), a Representative from North Carolina; born on Reems Creek, near Asheville, Buncombe County, N.C., April 24, 1828; attended the common schools; engaged in mercantile and agricultural pursuits; clerk of the court of pleas and quarter sessions 1848-1856; during the Civil War was elected captain of a company in the Confederate Army; twice elected colonel of the Twenty-ninth North Carolina Regiment; appointed brigadier general in 1863; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-third and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1885); chairman, Committee on Patents (Forty-fourth through Forty-sixth and Forty-eighth Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1884 to the Forty-ninth Congress; United States Assistant Commissioner of Patents from April 11, 1885, to April 4, 1889, when he resigned; returned to North Carolina and settled in Alexander; member of the State house of representatives 1894-1896; died in Alexander, near Asheville, N.C., November 28, 1899; interment in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, N.C.