Joseph A. Gavagan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Andrew Gavagan (August 20, 1892 - October 18, 1968) was a United States Representative from New York. Born in New York City, he attended the public and parochial schools and graduated from the law department of Fordham University in 1920. During the First World War he enlisted as a private and later was promoted to second lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps and served from August 20, 1917, to October 13, 1919. He was a first lieutenant in the Quartermaster Reserve Corps from 1920 to 1925. He was admitted to the bar in 1920 and commenced practice in New York City; from 1923 to 1929 he was a member of the New York State Assembly.
Gavagan was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Royal H. Weller; he was reelected to the Seventy-second and to the six succeeding Congresses and held office from November 5, 1929 until December 30, 1943, when he resigned, having been elected a justice of the New York Supreme Court in November 1943 for a fourteen-year term. While in the House of Representatives he was chairman of the Committee on Elections No. 2 (Seventy-second through Seventy-sixth Congresses) and Committee on War Claims (Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth Congresses). He was reelected in 1957 for a second term as a justice and in 1968 died in Bennington, Vermont. Interment was in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, New York.
