VanLeer Polk
BornJuly 9, 1856
DiedDecember 19, 1907
Occupation(s)Politician, diplomat
Parent(s)Andrew Jackson Polk
Rebecca Van Leer
RelativesWilliam Polk (paternal grandfather)
Antoinette Polk (sister)

VanLeer Polk (a.k.a. Van Leer Polk) (July 9, 1856 - December 19, 1907) was an American politician and diplomat from Tennessee. He served in the Tennessee Senate as a representative for Maury County in the 1890s. He was appointed Consul-General in Calcutta, India, and was one of six representatives of the United States at the 1906 Pan-American Conference. He was a member of the influential Van Leer family.

Early life

Polk was born at Ashwood Hall in Ashwood, Tennessee, on July 9, 1856. He attended the Silling's School in Vevey, Switzerland and in Rugby, England.[1] His father, Andrew Jackson Polk, was the son of Colonel William Polk.[2] His mother, Rebecca Van Leer, was an heiress from the Van Leer family to an iron fortune from Cumberland Furnace.[2]

Career

Polk was a member of the Democratic Party and represented Maury County in the Tennessee Senate during the 1890s. With Flourney Rivers, a state senator for Giles County, he introduced railroad commission bills.[3]

Polk invested in silver mining operations in Mexico[4] along with Tennessee politicians Duncan Brown Cooper and Henry Cooper.[5]

In 1883, a committee of the Tennessee State Senate discovered a $400,000 (~$10.7 million in 2022) deficit in their accounting with funds being misappropriated by Polk's cousin, M.T. Polk.[4] Polk and his cousin were apprehended by detectives in San Antonio, Texas but were released possibly due to the acceptance of a bribe and headed for Mexico. U.S. Marshals arrested Polk's cousin 18 miles from the Mexico border and he was returned to Tennessee and found guilty of embezzlement.[6]

Polk was appointed as Consul-General to Calcutta, India[7] by President Grover Cleveland.[8] In 1906, he was appointed as one of six United States commissioners to the Pan-American Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by President Theodore Roosevelt.[1][9]

He worked as editor of the Weekly News and Scimitar newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee.[1]

Personal life

He married Dorothy Kitchen Bodine in New York City on February 20, 1907. He died on December 19, 1907, in Memphis, Tennessee.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Scott, Henry Edwards (1922). The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. New England Historic Genealogical Society. p. 260. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  2. 1 2 Garrett, Jill K. (Spring 1970). "St. John's Church, Ashwood". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 29 (1): 3–23. JSTOR 42623126.
  3. ↑ Lester, Connie L. (2006). Up from the Mudsills of Hell: The Farmers' Alliance, Populism, and Progressive Agriculture in Tennessee, 1870-1915. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-8203-3080-8. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  4. 1 2 Senate Journal of the Forty-Third General Assembly of the State of Tennessee Which Convened at Nashville on the first Monday in January A.D., 1883. Nashville: Albert B. Tavel, Law Publisher. 1883. p. 170. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  5. ↑ Caldwell, Joshua W. (1898). Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Tennessee. Knoxville, Tenn.: Ogden Brothers & Co. p. 365. ISBN 9781404706934. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  6. ↑ Polk, William R. (2001). Polk's Folly - An American Family History. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 338–340. ISBN 0-385-49151-4. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  7. ↑ Culbertson, Lewis R. (1923). Genealogy of the Culbertson and Culberson families. Dalcassian Publishing Company. p. 35. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  8. ↑ Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America Fifty-Third Congress from August 7,1893, to March 2, 1895. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1909. p. 9. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
  9. ↑ "Lucky Frenchman Has Won the Love of Gladys Deacon: After the Affairs of a Smitten Prince and a Duke "Turned Down," Comes the Triumph of Young Baron de Charette, And Another International Romance Is Launched". Palestine Daily Herald. 13 April 1908. p. 6. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon


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