William H. Meyer

Who was William H. Meyer?

William Henry Meyer, was a Member of the United States House of Representatives from Vermont.

Born in Philadelphia, he attended the public schools of Philadelphia and graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1936. He worked as a timber cruiser, State and Federal forester, Civilian Conservation Corps technician and supervisor in West Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin, and New Jersey from 1936 to 1940. He moved to a farm in Bennington County, Vermont, in 1945. He worked with the Soil Conservation Service in Vermont from 1940 to 1950. In 1951 he entered private practice as a consulting forester and became executive director of the Vermont Forest and Farmland Foundation.

He was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-sixth Congress, defeating the Republican candidate, former Governor Harold Arthur. He became the first Democrat to represent Vermont at the federal level in 102 years. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1960 to the Eighty-seventh Congress, when he was defeated by Republican Governor Robert Stafford. He was appointed as a consultant, Technical Review Staff, Department of the Interior in May 1961, and served until December 1963.