pursued the trade of plastering before becoming a merchant. A resident and postmaster of Hamilton, he also served as the county auditor in 1874 and as a captain in the Pennsylvania National Guard for a decade. A Republican, he was unsuccessful in his run for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1882, but was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 1893. Serving there until 1900, he introduced legislation in 1897 to ensure that city bakeries and small factories producing baked goods would be subject to state factory inspections, that schools statewide would have uniform textbooks which were pre-approved by a gubernatorial commission, and which transferred responsibility for the maintenance and rebuilding of township bridges of more than thirty feet in length to the commissioners of the counties where those bridges were located. In 1899, he was then named chair of the Senate's powerful appropriations committee. Death and interment James G. Mitchell died in Hamilton, Pennsylvania, on July 19, 1919. Following funeral services on July 22, he was buried at his community's White Church Cemetery. See also Pennsylvania in the American Civil War References External links "James George Mitchell" (memorial with gravestone photographs). Salt Lake City, Utah: Find A Grave, retrieved online September 22, 2018. 1847 births 1919 deaths Pennsylvania state senators Union Army soldiers