Born at Sewickley, Pennsylvania, Plants apprenticed to a saddler at the age of twelve. He received a limited common school education. He attended Beaver College, Meadville, Pennsylvania. He taught school, and while teaching studied law with Edwin M. Stanton in the office of Judge David Powell at Steubenville, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Athens, Ohio, in 1846, but soon moved to Pomeroy, Ohio. He served as member of the State house of representatives 1858–1861. He was owner and publisher of the Pomeroy Weekly Telegraph about 1860.

Congress edit

Plants was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses (March 4, 1865 - March 3, 1869). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1868.

Later career and death edit

He served as Common Pleas Judge in Meigs County from 1873 to 1875, when he resigned to resume the practice of law. A presidential elector for Garfield/Arthur in 1880,^[1] he served as president of the First City Bank of Pomeroy from 1878 until his death in Pomeroy on June 19, 1887. He was interred in Beech Grove Cemetery.

• United States Congress. "Tobias A. Plants (id: P000376)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Smith, Joseph P, ed. (1898). History of the Republican Party in Ohio. Vol. I. Chicago: the Lewis Publishing Company.

  This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress