William A. Phillips

Born in Paisley, Scotland, Phillips attended the common schools of Paisley. He immigrated to the United States in 1838 with his parents, who settled in Randolph County, Illinois. He engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was employed as a newspaper correspondent 1845-1862. He studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1855 and commenced practice in Lawrence, Kansas, working also as a correspondent for the New York Tribune. He was first justice of the Kansas Supreme Court under the Leavenworth Constitution. He founded the city of Salina, Kansas, in 1858. During the American Civil War, though offered a large sum to be a correspondent at the front, he entered the Union Army as a volunteer, and raised some of the first troops in Kansas in 1861. He was afterward commissioned colonel and served as commander of the Cherokee Indian Regiment. He served as prosecuting attorney of Cherokee County in 1865. He served in the state House of Representatives in 1865.

Phillips was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third, Forty-fourth, and Forty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1873 – March 3, 1879). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1878. After leaving Congress, he was attorney for the Cherokee Indians at Washington, D.C.. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to Congress in 1890. He died at Fort Gibson, Muskogee County, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), November 30, 1893. He was interred in Gypsum Hill Cemetery, Salina, Kansas.

The city of Phillipsburg, Kansas was named in honor William A. Phillips.

• United States Congress. "William A. Phillips (id: P000315)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Kansas cyclopedia
• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Phillips, William Addison" . Encyclopedia Americana.

• William A. Phillips at Find a Grave

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress website http://bioguide.congress.gov.