Joseph Rainey (21 June 1832-1 August 1887) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-SC 1) from 12 December 1870 to 3 March 1879, succeeding Benjamin Franklin Whittemore and preceding John S. Richardson.
Biography[]
Joseph Rainey was born in Georgetown, South Carolina in 1832 to a family of enslaved African-Americans; his mother was of biracial Haitian descent. His father saved up to purchase the freedom of his family during the 1840s, and Rainey would later be drafted by the Confederate States Navy as a cook and laborer on blockade runner ships during the American Civil War. In 1862, Rainey and his family escaped to Bermuda, where they became prosperous as he worked as a barber and bartender for the wealthy white community there. In 1866, Rainey and his family settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and he served in the State Senate in 1870 and then in the US House of Representatives from 1870 to 1879. In 1874, he moved his family to his "summer home" in Windsor, Connecticut to protect them, and he spent most of his time there, while continuing to represent South Carolina. He later worked for the Treasury Department and as a banker in Washington DC, and he died in his hometown of Georgetown in 1887.