Zadock Pratt - Legacy As A Congressman

Legacy As A Congressman

"The business of life is to be useful."

As a congressman, Pratt pushed for legislation.

• Reduce the cost of postage from $.25 to $.05 in 1838.
• Create the Bureau of Engraving and Patents
• Construct public buildings in Washington, DC, of marble or granite, not sandstone.
• Construct the Dry Dock in Brooklyn.
• Initiate first survey for the Transcontinental Railroad 1844.
• While in Congress he began a movement to complete the Washington Monument, and he also started a practice of hanging the Presidential Portraits in the Rotunda.

The epitaph on Pratt's gravestone reads:

WHILE MEMBER OF CONGRESS
MOVED THE REDUCTION OF POSTAGE
A.D. 1838
AND THE SURVEY FOR A RAILROAD
TO THE PACIFIC A.D. 1844

member of the State Senate in 1830; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1837-March 3, 1839); elected to the Twenty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1845); chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Twenty-eighth Congress).