Martin Welker

Martin Welker (April 25, 1819 – March 15, 1902) was a United States representative from Ohio for three terms from 1865 to 1871 and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio from 1873 to 1889. Education and career Welker was born on April 25, 1819, in Knox County, Ohio. His father was an immigrant from the German Confederation and an early European pioneer in Ohio. Welker left the family farm at the age of 14 to take a job as a clerk in a store in Millersburg, Ohio. He attended the common schools and read law in 1840. He was admitted to the bar and entered private practice in Millersburg from 1840 to 1846. He was clerk of the Holmes County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas from 1846 to 1851. In 1848, Welker was the Whig nominee for the 31st United States Congress, but lost in the largely Democratic district. In 1850, he again was offered the nomination, but declined it. He resumed private practice in Millersburg from 1851 to 1852. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the 33rd United States Congress in 1852. He was a Judge of the Ohio Court of Common Pleas for the Sixth Judicial District from 1852 to 1857. He resumed private practice in Wooster, Ohio in 1857. He was elected the fourth lieutenant governor of Ohio and president of the Ohio Senate in the Fifty-third General Assembly, serving from 1857 to 1858, elected on the ticket with Governor of Ohio Salmon P. Chase. He was a Colonel in the United States Army from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Civil War service