Thomas Lowry Young was born in Killyleagh, County Down, Ireland, on December 14, 1832. He immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1847 and attended the public schools of New York City. Near the end of the Mexican-American War, Young, though only a teenager, enlisted in the U.S. Army as a musician and served from March 25, 1848, until January 28, 1858.

Young then settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, and worked as an instructor in the Ohio State reform school. During the Civil War, Young joined the Missouri Volunteers as captain of Benton Cadets. He resigned from that post near the end of 1861. For a short time, he edited a Democratic newspaper in Sidney, Ohio, and wrote articles condemning the indecisive nature of the Union in the war. Unlike the Peace Democrats, Young criticized the Lincoln administration for not taking more definitive action. On September 17, 1862, he received a commission as major of the 118th Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In 1863, he received a promotion to lieutenant colonel and then to full colonel on April 11, 1864, while fighting in the East Tennessee campaign. Young led his men in a courageous charge at the Battle of Resaca near Dalton, Georgia, and was later brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers for demonstration of bravery in his services. He contracted a disease during that campaign, however, and received an honorable discharge on September 14, 1864. Young returned to Ohio to recover and then entered Cincinnati Law School to pursue a new career path.

Young was admitted to the bar in 1865 and began his practice in Cincinnati. That same year, he was also named assistant city auditor of Cincinnati. Young's political affiliation had changed to Republican over the course of the Civil War, and he was elected as a Republican to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served from 1866 through 1868. He was also elected recorder of Hamilton County in 1867 and served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1868. President Andrew Johnson then appointed him supervisor of internal revenue in 1868, but he resigned within a year in protest of the Johnson administration.

Following his time in the State House, Young served as a member of the State Senate from 1871-1873. After a short stint in the real estate business, he returned politics and became lieutenant governor of Ohio in 1875, defeating a former Representative of Ohio's 2nd District, Samuel Cary. Young then took office in 1876 under Rutherford B. Hayes. When Hayes became President, Young filled his seat as Acting Governor in 1877.

Young switched his focus to national politics in the elections of 1878, when he won a seat in the 46th Congress as a Republican from the 2nd District and won re-election in 1880 to the 47th Congress. During his second term in office, he chaired the Committee on Patents. In 1882, Young lost the Republican nomination and returned to his law practice.

From 1886 through 1888, Young served as a member of the board of public affairs in Cincinnati. He died in Cincinnati on July 20, 1888, and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery. He had been married three times and had eight children who survived him.

Sources:
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Wikipedia
Ohio Historical Society-Ohio governors-on Ohiohistory.com
Ohio History Central website
Picture taken from: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.shtml?rec=426

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