Sydney E. Mudd I

American politician

Sydney Emanuel Mudd I (February 12, 1858 – October 21, 1911) was a politician, elected as Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates (1896) and as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives (1890–1891; 1897–1911), at a time of dominance by Democrats in much of the state. He was first seated by Congress in 1890 after it found in his favor in relation to the contested 1888 election in Maryland's 5th congressional district, which was marked by fraud and intimidation.

Sydney Emanuel Mudd was born to Jeremiah T. Mudd on February 12, 1858. He was born into the planter class at the family plantation, Gallant Green, in Charles County, Maryland, Mudd was reared Catholic and first educated locally. He was the nephew of Samuel Mudd, the doctor that aided John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. He attended Georgetown University and graduated from St. John's College of Annapolis, Maryland in 1878. She died in 1907.

Mudd was elected a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in 1879 and 1881. Congress awarded the seat to Mudd in 1889, and he served in the next session, from March 20, 1890, to March 3, 1891. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1890 to the Fifty second Congress, defeated by Compton. He was elected from the 5th district to the Fifty fifth and to the six succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1897 to March 3, 1911. (His chief Democratic rival in the district, Barnes Compton, died in 1898.

Mudd died of a stroke in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 21, 1911.