Richard Graham Frost

Richard Graham Frost (December 29, 1851 – February 1, 1900) was a United States Representative from Missouri and a Democratic politician and lawyer active in St. Louis during the late nineteenth century. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 29, 1851, into a community that was then emerging as a major commercial and political center in the post–Civil War Midwest. Details of his early family life are not extensively documented in contemporary records, but his subsequent education and professional career reflected the opportunities available to a member of the city’s growing professional class.

Frost pursued an extensive and geographically wide-ranging education. He attended St. John’s College in New York City, an institution that exposed him to the intellectual and political currents of the Northeast. Seeking further academic training abroad, he studied at the University of London, gaining experience in an international educational environment at a time when relatively few American students did so. He then returned to his native state to study law at St. Louis Law School in Missouri, completing the legal education that would form the basis of his professional and political life.

After his legal studies, Frost was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in St. Louis, Missouri. As a member of the local bar, he built a career in private practice in a city that was a hub of transportation, trade, and industry. His legal work and professional associations helped establish his standing in Democratic Party circles and provided a platform for his entry into electoral politics during a period marked by intense partisan competition in Missouri.

Frost first sought national office in the contested political climate following Reconstruction. Running as a Democrat, he unsuccessfully contested the election in 1876 of Republican Lyne S. Metcalfe to the Forty-fifth Congress. This challenge, though unsuccessful, demonstrated Frost’s rising prominence within his party and his willingness to engage in the complex and often contentious electoral disputes of the era.

Frost was subsequently elected as a Democrat to the Forty-sixth Congress, serving from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1881, as a Representative from Missouri. During this term, he participated in the legislative work of a Congress that addressed issues of currency, federal spending, and the continuing adjustment of national policy in the post–Civil War period. He was again chosen by Missouri voters and presented his credentials as a Member-elect to the Forty-seventh Congress, taking his seat on March 4, 1881. He served in that capacity until March 2, 1883, when he was succeeded by Gustavus Sessinghaus, who successfully contested Frost’s election. The dispute over his seat reflected the close partisan balance and frequent recourse to election contests in the House of Representatives during that time.

Following the conclusion of his congressional service, Frost returned to St. Louis and resumed the practice of law. He continued his professional activities in the city where he had been born, educated in part, and politically active, remaining part of the legal community through the final years of the nineteenth century. His post-congressional career was devoted to private practice rather than further pursuit of national office, in keeping with the pattern of many one- or two-term representatives of his era.

Richard Graham Frost died in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 1, 1900. He was interred in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, a burial place for many of the city’s prominent citizens. His life and career reflected the trajectory of a late nineteenth-century Midwestern lawyer-politician who combined local legal practice with service in the national legislature during a period of significant political and economic change in the United States.