Mell G. Underwood as a United States Representative from Ohio. He was born at Rose Farm, Morgan County, Ohio, January 30, 1892; attended the public schools and was graduated from the New Lexington High School in 1911. He taught in the public schools of New Lexington for several years; studied law at the Ohio State University at Columbus; was admitted to the bar in 1915 and commenced practice in New Lexington, Perry County, Ohio. Underwood was prosecuting attorney of Perry County 1917-1921; then an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for election in 1920 to the Sixty-seventh Congress; eventually elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-eighth Congress and the six succeeding Congresses serving from March 4, 1923, to April 10, 1936, when he resigned upon appointment as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and served until his retirement on June 30, 1967. He was chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions (Seventy-second through Seventy-fourth Congresses). He died on his farm near New Lexington, Ohio, March 8, 1972, and was buried nearby in Maplewood Cemetery.
