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In August 1872, Rep. John V. Creely (R-Pennsylvania), in heavy debt, disappeared. The freshman congressman's absence wasn't noticed very quickly - Creely hadn't been the most active member of the House to begin with, and news traveled slower back then.
Things have changed since 1872. We live in a virtual panopticon and everyone has a camera and a tracking device in their pocket.
And yet, members of Congress are still somehow disappearing for extended periods without much explanation.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) was admitted to the hospital on June 14, and his office has been cagey about the cause of his lengthy hospitalization or his current state.
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey) missed more than 140 votes over the course of four months. He returned at the end of June and revealed he had been receiving treatment for depression.
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Florida) missed weeks of votes this spring, and only offered up an explanation after reporter Jamie Dupree pointed out her extended absence. The 83-year-old was recovering from eye surgery.
Last year, former representative Kay Granger (R-Texas) stopped showing up to Congress in the last few months of her final term. She was eventually found in an assisted-living facility, and her son later told the Dallas Morning News that she had "dementia issues."
"Some of these episodes sound kind of like things that used to happen," said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley who focuses on Congress. "We've gotten used to this idea that members of Congress show up and are supposed to be there and they're going to get into political trouble if they're not. I don't think that was necessarily the case so much in earlier times."
Schickler notes that serving in Congress didn't really used to be a career, and with other professional responsibilities - not to mention the difficulty of traveling to D.C. from around the country - members would routinely be absent from Congress, with absentee rates on roll call votes of around 20 percent.
That started to change in the 20th century, as Congress professionalized, travel became easier, and the general public became more knowledgeable about the day-to-day activities of their representatives in D.C. But even with professionalization on Capitol Hill, there aren't accountability structures in place for attendance.
Members of Congress are not required by law to divulge health issues that would interfere with their ability to carry out their duties, nor are they required to attend a certain percentage of votes. There have been cases of members of Congress missing years of their terms due to incapacitation, leaving their constituents unrepresented and refusing to let someone else give them a voice in Washington.
The only recourse for removing an incapacitated member of Congress is for them to retire, resign, lose reelection or be kicked out by two-thirds of the members of their chamber of Congress. Congress is notoriously hesitant to police its own and has become even more so during our deeply partisan times, particularly when one party has a narrow majority in a congressional chamber.
"We're just in this era of really slim majorities and also such intense polarization," said Schickler. "You want to hold the seat for your party."
McConnell, 84, no longer leads Senate Republicans, but still holds roles in key committees, such as the Senate Appropriations Committee, where his absence has left the committee in a deadlock as they try again to hash out a plan to fund the government for fiscal year 2027 ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline.
The Appropriations Committee has already delayed hearings on some appropriations bills because of McConnell's absence, a Republican aide told our colleagues Jarrell Dillard and Noah Robertson.
The situation is reminiscent of former senator Dianne Feinstein's final months of life in 2023, in which the then-89-year-old senator's health issues caused her to miss more than two months of votes. Even after she returned to Congress, concerns about Feinstein's cognitive decline and ability to do her job remained. She died a few months later.
Feinstein's decline left some voters with a sense that the person they elected to represent them was not being forthright about her ability to do so - concerns McConnell is now facing as well. These sorts of incidents have raised broader questions about the responsibilities officeholders have to their constituents when they find they can no longer carry out their duties, because of age, injury, illness or any other reason. (And as the United States' 250th just reminded us, Americans really don't like going without representation.)
"There's a risk of a disconnect between Congress and the public. Voters see themselves as having jobs that they have to do and they're held accountable," Schickler said. "Congress clearly has long had a kind of reputation with the public and sticking around for a long time while not able to do the work doesn't do anything to help the institution's reputation with the public."
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