Congressman John Van Voorhis was born on 22. Oct. 1826 at Decatur, Otsego County, New York. He was the son of
Rev. John Van Voorhis and
Elvira Leach. Congressman John Van Voorhis married
Frances Aristine Galusha, daughter of
Martin Galusha and
Almira Cole, on 2. Jan. 1858. Congressman John Van Voorhis held the position of congressman 46th and 47th Congress bt 4. Mar. 1879 - 3. Mar. 1883.
Congressman John Van Voorhis was shown in the census on 3. Jun. 1880 as a lawyer.
He and
Frances Aristine Galusha appeared on the census of 3. Jun. 1880 at Rochester, Monroe County, New York.
Congressman John Van Voorhis held the position of congressman 53rd Congress bt 4. Mar. 1893 - 3. Mar. 1895.
Congressman John Van Voorhis was shown in the census on 11. Jun. 1900 as a lawyer.
He and
Frances Aristine Galusha appeared on the census of 11. Jun. 1900 at Rochester, Monroe County, New York.
Congressman John Van Voorhis died on 20. Oct. 1905 at Rochester, Monroe County, New York, at age 78. He was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.

VAN VOORHIS, John, a Representative from New York; born in Decatur, Otsego County, N.Y., on October 22, 1826; pursued an academic course; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1851 and commenced practice in Elmira, Chemung County, N.Y; member of the board of education in 1857; city attorney in 1859; appointed collector of internal revenue for the twenty-eighth district of New York and served from September 1, 1862, to March 31, 1863; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864; elected as a Republican to the Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1883); chairman, Committee on Mines and Mining (Forty-seventh Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; resumed the practice of law in Rochester, N.Y; elected to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; resumed the practice of law in Rochester, N.Y., and died there on October 20, 1905; interment in Mount Hope Cemetery.
JOHN VAN VOORHIS
John Van Voorhis was born in the town of Decatur, Otsego county, New York, October 22, 1826. He is of Holland descent, his ancestors being among the early Dutch settlers of New York. The emmigrant ancestor from whom he is descended, Stephen Coerte Van Voorhees, who was born at Hego in Holland in 1600, came to this country in 1660 in the ship "Boutekoe," (Spotted Cow) bringing with him his wife and seven children. He settled at Flatland, Long Island. He purchased from Cornelius Dirksen Hoogland nine morgens of corn land, seven morgens of wood land, ten morgens of plain land and five morgens of salt meadow, at Flatlands, for three thousand guilders; also the house and house-plot lying in the village of "Amesfoort en Bergen," (Flatlands) with the brewery and all the brewing apparatus, etc. He died at Flatlands iii 1702. One of his grandsons, Johannes Coerte Van Voorhis, removed to Fishkill, Dutchess county, in 1730, where he purchased on June 20 of that year of Philip Verplanck a farm of two thousand seven hundred acres of land for six hundred and seventy pounds sterling. The original deed for that farm is now in the possession of William Henry Van Voorhis of Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, Dutchess county, New York. The father of the subject of this sketch was a farmer and a Methodist local preacher. He was the great-grandson in the direct line from Johannes Coerte Van Voorhis of Fishkill. The latter changed the orthography of the name from Van Voorhees to Van Voorhis, before his death in 1757, and his descendants universally write the name "Van Voorhis." John Van Voorhis, whom we are now writing about, was brought up on his father's farm, receiving such education as he could pick up in the common schools, the school library and a few terms at Genesee Wesleyan seminary at Lima, New York. His father left Otsego county when he was about seven years of age, and after residing a few years in the town of Scott, Cortland county, New York, and in the town of Spafford, Onondaga county, he removed in March, 1843, to Mendon, Monroe county, and settled on a farm at Mendon Center. In 1848 he purchased the Peter Shulters farm in the southeast corner of Mendon, and resided there until his death, March 26, 1867. His son, John Van Voorhis, assisted his father on the farm, and in the Winter of 1848 taught a district school in the town of Victor. He continued to teach in the district schools of Victor until 1850. In the Summer of 1850 he entered the law office of Hon. John W. Stebbins as a law student. The succeeding Winter he taught Latin and mathematics in the East Bloomfield academy at East Bloomfield, New York. He continued teaching in that academy until the Spring of 1852, keeping up his law reading and being admitted to the bar in the meantime, December, 1851. In the Spring of 1853 he began the practice of law at Elmira in partnership with Hon. Gilbert O. Hulse. He succeeded in the business well enough, hut not liking the location opened his law office in Rochester, New York, on July 4, 1854, and has practiced law here for over forty years. He has held office as follows: In 1857 he was a member of the Board of Education for the Fifth ward; in 1859 he was city attorney; in 1862 he was appointed by Abraham Lincoln collector of internal revenue of this district and held the office for about six months, Senator Ira Harris succeeding in securing his rejection by the Senate; in 1864 he was a delegate to the Republican National convention at Baltimore which renominated Abraham Lincoln for President; in 1878 he was elected a representative in Congress from this district, and in 1886 was reölected; in 1892 he was again elected to Congress, and is now a member of the Fifty-third Congress. In 1858 he was married to Frances Aristine Galusha, a daughter of Martin Galusha, and a granddaughter of Governor Jonas Galusha, who was governor of Vermont for nine successive terms. Mr. Van Voorhis resides at 256 East avenue and has resided in that house twenty-five years. Soon after he was married he purchased the house on the southeast corner of East avenue and Chestnut street, where he resided for eleven years, so that he has been a resident of East avenue for thirty-six years. For a period of thirty-five years his law firm consisted of his brother, Quincy Van Voorhis, and himself, the firm name being J. & Q. Van Voorhis. For the last two years it has consisted of his two sons, Eugene Van Voorhis, Charles Van Voorhis and himself, under the name of John Van Voorhis & Sons.
Rochester and the Post Express; A history of the City of Rochester from the earliest times; the pioneers and their predecessors, frontier life in the Genesee country, biographical sketches; with a record of the Post Express compiled by John Devoy (1895) pages 256-7.