John Raglan Glascock

John Raglan Glascock (August 25, 1845 – November 10, 1913) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician who served one term as a U.S. Representative from California from 1883 to 1885, and later as mayor of Oakland from 1889 to 1891. Over the course of his public career he held a series of important legal and municipal offices in California during a period of rapid growth and political change in the state.

Glascock was born in Panola County, Mississippi, on August 25, 1845. In 1856 he moved with his parents to California, where the family settled in San Francisco. Growing up in the Bay Area, he attended the public schools and came of age as California was consolidating its early statehood institutions and political culture.

Pursuing higher education, Glascock enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he graduated in 1865. He then studied law at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, receiving formal legal training in one of the country’s leading law programs of the era. After completing his legal studies, he returned to California and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of California in 1868. He commenced the practice of law in Oakland, California, building a professional reputation in the growing East Bay community. His standing at the bar was further recognized when he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1882.

Glascock’s public career began at the county level. He served as district attorney of Alameda County, California, from 1875 to 1877, a role in which he was responsible for prosecuting criminal cases and advising county officials on legal matters. His experience as a prosecutor and his involvement in local affairs helped establish him as a prominent Democratic figure in the region. In 1880 he ran for Congress as a candidate of both the Democratic Party and the Workingmen’s Party, reflecting the era’s complex political alignments and labor-oriented movements, but he was unsuccessful in that initial bid.

In 1882 Glascock was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth Congress, representing California in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1885. As a member of the Democratic Party representing California, he contributed to the legislative process during his single term in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history marked by industrial expansion and regional development. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1884 to the Forty-ninth Congress, and his service in the House concluded at the end of his term.

After leaving Congress, Glascock returned to municipal politics in Oakland. He was elected mayor of Oakland, with sources recording his mayoral tenure as running from 1887 to 1890 and, in other accounts, from 1889 to 1891; in either case, he served a term at the head of the city government during the late 1880s and early 1890s. As mayor, he presided over a city undergoing rapid urban growth and infrastructural development, applying his legal and legislative experience to local administration and civic affairs.

Following his period in municipal office, Glascock resumed the private practice of law in Oakland. He continued to live and work in the Bay Area until his death. Glascock died at his country home in Woodside, California, on November 10, 1913. He was interred in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, a resting place for many of the region’s notable figures, marking the close of a career that spanned local, county, and national public service.