Orrin Dubbs Bleakley

Orrin Dubbs Bleakley (5 May 1854 – 3 December 1927) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Bleakley was born in Franklin, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Bonn, in Prussia. He was engaged in banking with his father until 1876. He became interested in the production of oil and worked in the industry from 1876 to 1883. He organized the Franklin Trust Company in 1883, and became its president. He was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention in 1904, and served as chairman of the Venango County Republican committee.

Upon his election to Congress in November of 1915, O. D. became the first government official to fly from his home state to DC. The trip was made in a 75-horsepower Curtiss biplane from Philadelphia, piloted by Sergeant William C. Ocker, on leave from the United States Aviation Corps at the time. The trip took 3:15 hours, including an unscheduled stop in a wheatfield in Maryland.

Samuel Ridgeway Stratton of DC published a poetic account of the flight in the Philadelphia Press, including these lines:

And now, dear Josephus, let us not underrate

This Congressman brave from the old Keystone State

For he's the first of the bunch that I've ever seen

Who had the nerve to come here in a flying machine.

Bleakley was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth Congress and served from 04 March to 03 April 1917, when he resigned without having qualified. His resignation came after he was convicted and fined under the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910. Bleakley's offense-- he had spent more than the allotted $5,000 on his campaign. He resumed banking in Franklin, and died in Robinson, Illinois. Interment in Franklin Cemetery in Franklin, Pennsylvania.

Sources

• United States Congress. "Orrin D. Bleakley (id: B000552)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard
• Venango County Historical Society. Venango County 2000: The Changing Scene. VCHS, Franklin. 2000.