David Archibald Harvey
David Archibald Harvey (March 20, 1845 – May 24, 1916) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma Territory.
He was born in Stewiacke, Nova Scotia, and moved with his family to Ohio in 1852. When the Civil War began in 1861, he joined the Union Army as a private in Company B, 4th Ohio Cavalry, and served throughout the war, rising to the rank of sergeant.
After the war, Harvey studied law at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1868 and began practicing in Topeka, Kansas, in 1869. He served as Topeka’s city attorney from 1871 to 1881 and as probate judge from 1881 to 1889.
With the opening of the Oklahoma Territory in 1889, he moved to Wyandotte, Oklahoma. He was elected as a delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from November 4, 1890, to March 3, 1893 (the 51st and 52nd Congresses). In 1892 he introduced the Harvey Bill to make Oklahoma a state, but it was blocked by the House Committee on Territories. He did not win reelection in 1892.
After leaving Congress, Harvey returned to law practice. He also represented the Indian tribes of northeast Oklahoma and the Cayugas in New York. He lived in Miami, Oklahoma, and later on a farm belonging to the Wyandotte Nation near Seneca, Missouri.
Harvey died in Hope, New Mexico, on May 24, 1916, at age 71. He is buried in Seneca Cemetery in Seneca, Missouri. He was married to Mary Crapsey in 1881.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:24 (CET).