Name: Hon. Samuel Shellabarger
Lawyer, ex-Member of Congress, ex-United States Minister Resident to Portugal, etc., was born in Clark county, Ohio, December 10th, 1817. His father, Samuel Shellabarger, a farmer, was a native of Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. His mother, Bethany (McCurdy) Shellabarger, was born near New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father's family was of German-Swiss extraction. Martin Shellabarger, the founder of the family in America, who emigrated from Switzerland to this country in the early part of the eighteenth century, was a descendant of Henry Shellabarger (German--Schollenberger) who lived in the Canton of Uri, at the date of the battle at "Rutli Meadow," in 1807. Samuel graduated at Miami University, with the class of 1841, and subsequently studied law under the instruction of Hon. Samson Mason. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and in 1847 entered on the practice of his profession in Miami county. In 1848, however, he returned to Springfield, where he has since resided, more or less regularly engaged in professional labors up to 1874. He is now engaged in his profession in Washington, District of Columbia. In 1852 he was elected to the Ohio Legislature on the Whig ticket, and served in the first Legislature under the present Constitution. In 1860 he was elected, as a Republican, to the Thirty-seventh Congress; in 1864 was elected, as a Republican, to the Thirty-ninth Congress; and in 1866 was elected, as a Republican, to the Fortieth Congress. In 1869 he was sent, as United States Minister Resident, to Portugal, but resigned that position in the following December. In 1870 he was elected to the Forty-second Congress, and served through that Congress. In this Congress he was Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, and of the Select Committee on Southern Affairs, and reported from this committee the bill known as "the Ku-Klux Bill," which, under his management, became a law. During the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, he was a member of the Elections Committee, and was author of and mover of important parts of the first Reconstruction Act. In 1873 he was appointed by the President a member of "the Civil Service Commission."
