John Bigelow, Sr.

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John Bigelow, Sr.

John Bigelow, Sr. (born November 25, 1817 in Malden , New York , † December 19, 1911 in New York City , New York) was an American lawyer and politician . He was Secretary of State of New York from 1876 to 1878 .

Early years

Nothing is known about John Bigelow, Sr.'s youth. In 1835 he graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he was a member of the Sigma Phi Society and the Philomathean Society . He was admitted to the bar in 1838. The following years were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the Mexican-American War . From 1849 to 1861 he was one of the editors and co-owners of the New York Evening Post . On June 11, 1850, he married Jane Tunis Poultney. The couple had nine children, including:

Political career

Bigelow began his political career as a reformist Democrat working with William Cullen Bryant in New York. In 1848, his anti- slavery views led him to leave the party and join the Free Soil Party . In this context, in the same year, 1848, he supported the candidacy of John C. Frémont for the office of President of the United States . In 1856 he led other former Democrats in the newly formed Republican Party .

After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 as president, appointed him Lincoln in 1861 to the American consul in Paris ( France ). He held the post of Chargé d'Affaires and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the court of Napoleon III. In his role he worked with Charles Francis Adams Sr. , the American ambassador in Great Britain . In this context, Bigelow helped block the attempts of France and Great Britain to intervene in the civil war in favor of the Confederate States of America , which was an essential contribution to the victory of the Union states . In 1865 he was appointed American Ambassador in France.

After the end of his term of office, he moved to German territory, where he lived for three years until the Franco-Prussian War . During that time he became a friend of Otto von Bismarck . After the end of the war he returned to New York. There he helped his old friend Samuel J. Tilden fight the corruption that flourished under William Marcy Tweed .

Because of his general reputation, which Bigelow had in New York, he was nominated by both political parties for a state office. Under the influence of Tilden, Bigelow decided to rejoin the Democratic Party. He accepted his nomination and was elected Secretary of State of New York in 1875. The Democratic Party nominated Tilden for President of the United States in 1876. Bigelow served as its campaign manager in 1876. In his role he advised Tilden in the dispute over the presidential election . Tilden passed away about a decade after the dispute was resolved by the Republican Party in favor of his rival Rutherford B. Hayes .

Bigelow acted as administrator of Tilden's estate. In the following years he carried out his wishes, which included the construction of the New York Public Library . Bigelow was a staunch advocate of building the Panama Canal . He was a friend of Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla , who brought the Declaration of Independence from Panama to his home. Panama's first proposed flag, designed by Mrs. Bunau-Varilla, was rejected by the Panamanians, who designed their own.

author

Bigelow began his writing career with Bryant in the New York Evening Post. In the following years he wrote several books. He was one of the first Americans to visit Haiti with an open mind. In this context he published The Wisdom of the Haitians, which before the Civil War was one of the few American works that presented a positive image of Haitian independence. Then he published The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin in 1868 and The Life of Samuel J. Tilden in 1895 .

In 1898 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

legacy

On August 8, 2001, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani signed a bill that renamed the intersection of 41st Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan , which is right in front of the famous main building of the New York Public Library, to John Bigelow Plaza . His property in Highland Falls, New York, better known as The Squirrels, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

literature

  • John Bigelow: The Life Of Samuel J. Tilden. Harper & Brothers, New York 1895. (Nikki Oldaker, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9786698-1-2 )
  • Retrospections of an Active Lile. Volume 3, Baker & Taylor Co., New York 1909.
  • Gustavo A. Mellander: The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years. Interstate Publishers, Daville, Illinois 1971, OCLC 138568 .
  • Gustavo A. Mellander, Nelly Maldonado Mellander: Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years. Editorial Plaza Mayor, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico 1999, ISBN 1-56328-155-4 .
  • Bigelow and Union College . In: The New York Times. March 18, 1913.
  • Margaret A. Clapp: Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow. 1947.
  • John Bigelow Papers, The New York Public Library
  • Hugh Chisholm (Ed.): John Bigelow . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 3, 11 volume, Cambridge University Press , 1911.

Web links

Commons : John Bigelow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Cullen Bryant, Thomas G. Voss: The Letters of William Cullen Bryant . Volume 6, Fordham Univ. Press, 1992, p. 273.
  2. ↑ Marcos E. Kinevan : Frontier Cavalryman, Lieutenant John Bigelow with the Buffalo Soldiers in Texas. Texas Western Press, The University of Texas, El Paso 1998, ISBN 0-87404-243-7 .
  3. ^ Members: John Bigelow. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Bigelow, John Sr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bigelow, John senior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Malden , New York
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1911
Place of death New York City , New York