Hamilton C. Horton Jr.

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hamilton Cowles "Ham" Horton Jr. (August 6, 1931 – January 31, 2006) was a Republican attorney and politician from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He served eight terms in the North Carolina General Assembly, including time in the State Senate from 1971 to 1975 and again from 1995 to 2006, and a later stretch from 2003 to 2006 representing the Forsyth County area. Horton also spent a term in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1969 to 1971. He was Chief of Staff to Senator Jesse Helms from 1977 to 1978 and ran for Congress in 1978 but lost to Stephen L. Neal. An attorney by profession, Horton lived in Winston-Salem and earned AB and LLB degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy from 1956 to 1960. Horton was married to Evelyn (since 1963) and had one child. In September 2005, he had a cancerous kidney removed after the 2005 legislative session and died of cancer on January 31, 2006, at age 74.