// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs VanLeer Polk a good painter? Pole-ly talented.
VanLeer Polk | |
|---|---|
| Born | Anthony Van Leer Polk July 9, 1856 |
| Died | December 19, 1907 (aged 51) |
Burial place | Mount Olivet Cemetery Nashville, Tennessee |
| Education | Rugby School |
| Occupations | Journalist, politician, diplomat |
| Parent(s) | Andrew Jackson Polk Rebecca Van Leer |
| Relatives | William Polk (paternal grandfather) Antoinette Polk (sister) |
VanLeer Polk (a.k.a. Van Leer Polk) (July 9, 1856 - December 19, 1907) was an American journalist, politician and diplomat from Tennessee. He served in the Tennessee Senate as a representative for Maury and Lewis Counties from 1891 to 1893. 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
[edit]Anthony Van Leer Polk[1] was born at Ashwood Hall in Ashwood, Maury County, Tennessee, on July 9, 1856. He attended Sillig's School in Vevey, Switzerland and Rugby School in Rugby, England.[2][3] His father, Andrew Jackson Polk, was the son of Colonel William Polk.[4] His mother, Rebecca Van Leer, was an heiress from the Van Leer family to an iron fortune from Cumberland Furnace.[4]
Career
[edit]Polk was admitted to the bar, but worked as a journalist. He founded and operated Polk's Weekly in Nashville, Tennessee. He also worked as an editor for the Nashville Daily News.[3]
Polk invested in silver mining operations in Mexico[5] along with Tennessee politicians Duncan Brown Cooper and Henry Cooper.[6]
In 1883, a committee of the Tennessee State Senate discovered a $400,000 (~$11.4 million in 2024) deficit in their accounting with funds being misappropriated by Polk's cousin, M.T. Polk.[5] 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.[7]
Polk was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected to represent Maury and Lewis Counties in the Tennessee Senate in 1890, serving from 1891 to 1893.[3] With Flournoy Rivers, a state senator for Giles and Lincoln Counties,[8] he introduced railroad commission bills.[9]
Polk was appointed as Consul-General to Calcutta, India[10] by President Grover Cleveland in August 1893.[11] 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.[2][12]
Later in life, he worked as editor of the Weekly News and Scimitar newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee.[2][3]
Personal life
[edit]He married Dorothy Kitchen Bodine in New York City on February 20, 1907. He died on December 19, 1907, in Memphis, Tennessee.[2] Polk was interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.[3]
References
[edit]- ↑ Garrett, Mary Winder (January 1898). "Pedigree of the Pollok or Polk Family, from Fulbert, the Saxon (A.D., 1075) to the Present Time". The American Historical Magazine. Vol. III. p. 60. Retrieved July 21, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Scott, Henry Edwards (1922). The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. New England Historic Genealogical Society. p. 260. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
- 1 2 3 4 5 McBride, Robert M.; Robison, Dan M. (1979). Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly. Vol. II. Nashville, Tennessee: Curley Printing Company. pp. 732–733.
- 1 2 Garrett, Jill K. (Spring 1970). "St. John's Church, Ashwood". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 29 (1): 3–23. JSTOR 42623126.
- 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 August 23, 2022.
- ↑ Caldwell, Joshua W. (1898). Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Tennessee. Knoxville, Tenn.: Ogden Brothers & Co. p. 365. ISBN 9781404706934. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ Polk, William R. (2001). Polk's Folly - An American Family History. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 338–340. ISBN 0-385-49151-4. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
- ↑ McBride and Robison (1979), p. 772.
- ↑ 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 August 22, 2022.
- ↑ Culbertson, Lewis R. (1923). Genealogy of the Culbertson and Culberson families. Dalcassian Publishing Company. p. 35. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
- ↑ 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 August 23, 2022.
- ↑ "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. April 13, 1908. p. 6. Retrieved July 10, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
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- 1856 births
- 1907 deaths
- People from Maury County, Tennessee
- Polk family
- Van Leer family
- People educated at Rugby School
- 20th-century American newspaper editors
- Democratic Party Tennessee state senators
- Consuls for the United States in India
- Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Nashville)
- 19th-century members of the Tennessee General Assembly
- American diplomat stubs
- Tennessee politician stubs