John Franklin Rixey (August 1, 1854 – February 8, 1907) was a Democratic U.S. congressman from Virginia's 8th congressional district from 1897 to 1907.* John Franklin Rixey at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Early and family life John Franklin Rixey was born on August 1, 1854, in the Catalpa district of Culpeper County, Virginia, to farmer Presley Morehead Rixey and his wife the former Mary Frances Jones. His older brothers included Charles J. Rixey (1849–) and Presley Marion Rixey. The son of his younger brother, the banker Eppa Rixey (1857–1917) would become a major league baseball player, Eppa Rixey Jr. This John Rixey attended local schools and Bethel Academy, then studied law at the University of Virginia.Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (1915)
Rixey married Ella B. Barbour (1859–1946), daughter of James Barbour and his wife Fanny Thomas Beckham and granddaughter of John S. Barbour, who had likewise been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 15th congressional district. Their children included Mary Barbour Compton (b. 1884), John Strode Rixey (b. 1891), James B. Rixey (b. 1895) and Edith Presley Rixey Moore (b. 1897).1900 U.S. Federal Census for Stevensburg, Culpeper County, Virginia
Career After admission to the Virginia bar in 1875, Rixey had a private legal practice in Culpeper, Virginia. He was elected the county's Commonwealth Attorney (prosecutor) in 1879 and served in that position until 1891.Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (1915)
In 1896, Democratic Congressman Elisha E. Meredith retired to his legal practice, and voters in Virginia's 8th congressional district elected Rixey to the 55th Congress. Re-elected five times, Rixey served from March 4, 1897, until his death in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1907 (before the close of the 59th Congress). Although he had been re-elected to the 60th Congress, he died before beginning that term.
Beginning in his third Congressional term, Rixey proposed to place all Civil War veterans in the same class with respect to federal and state soldiers' homes. He also hosted President Theodore Roosevelt at Beauregard during his visit to Culpeper county and Cedar Run battlefield in 1902. Furthermore, a troop of Culpeper County veterans from the Spanish–American War marched at Roosevelt's inauguration.Scheel at pp. 260, 313 Rixey also introduced bills to create Manassas Battlefield Park, as advocated by constituents Edmund Berkeley and George Carr Round, although none passed until decades after his unexpectedly early death.Joan Zenzen, Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas (Pennsylvania State University Press 2010) p. 9
Death and legacy Rixey died in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1907. His portrait was placed at the courthouse in 1917.Eugene M. Scheel, Culpeper: A Virginia County's History through 1920 (Green Publishers for the Culpeper Historical Society, 1982) p. 323
After a contested Democratic primary, Charles Creighton Carlin of Alexandria, Virginia, succeeded him in the U.S. House.
See also List of members of the United States Congress who died in office (1900–1949)
References
John Franklin Rixey, late a representative from Virginia, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1907