Peleg Wadsworth

Paper cutting by Peleg Wadsworth

Peleg Wadsworth (born May 6, 1748 in Duxbury , Plymouth County , Province of Massachusetts Bay , †  November 12, 1829 in Hiram , Maine ) was an American politician . Between 1793 and 1807 he represented the state of Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Peleg Wadsworth grew up during the British colonial period and attended both public and private schools. He then studied at Harvard College until 1769 . In the following years he worked in Kingston among other things in trade. He joined the American Revolution in the 1770s and served as a staff officer in the Continental Army at the beginning of the Revolutionary War . In 1777 he became brigadier general of the militia and in 1778 as adjutant general commander of the Massachusetts militia. In 1784 he moved to Portland in what is now Maine. There he worked as a land manager. He also ran a shop. In 1786 he chaired the first congregation to establish the state of Maine. This only took place in 1820 in connection with the Missouri Compromise . In 1792 Wadsworth was elected to the Massachusetts Senate. Politically, he became a member of the Federalist Party founded by Alexander Hamilton in the late 1790s .

In the congressional elections of 1792 Peleg Wadsworth was elected to the then newly established 13th  constituency of Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives, which was still in Philadelphia at the time , where he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1793. After six re-elections, he was able to complete seven legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1807 . From 1803 he represented the newly created 15th district of his state there. During his time as a congressman in 1803 , the Louisiana Purchase made by President Thomas Jefferson expanded the territory of the United States considerably. In 1804 the twelfth amendment was ratified. The move into the new federal capital Washington, DC in 1800 is also worth mentioning .

In 1807, Peleg Wadsworth moved to Oxford County , District of Maine , where he worked on his government-owned land. He also held various local offices in Hiram. In this city he died on November 12, 1829. His grandson was the writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

Web links

• Peleg Wadsworth in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Peleg Wadsworth in the database of Find a Grave (English)