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In 1799 Fort Pickering in Salem, Massachusetts was named for him. [18]
In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Timothy Pickering was launched. She was lost off Sicily in 1943.
Until the 1990s, Pickering's ancestral home, the circa 1651 Pickering House, was the oldest house in the United States to be owned by the same family continually.
James Monroe was a Founding Father of the United States, and served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as president as well as the last president of the Virginia dynasty. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He issued the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas. Monroe previously served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh secretary of state, and the eighth secretary of war.
The Federalist Party was a conservative and nationalist American political party and the first political party in the United States. It dominated the national government under Alexander Hamilton from 1789 to 1801. The party was defeated by the Democratic-Republican Party in 1800, and it became a minority party while keeping its stronghold in New England. It made a brief resurgence by opposing the War of 1812, then collapsed with its last presidential candidate in 1816. Remnants lasted for a few years afterwards.
The 1792 presidential election were held in the United States from November 2 to December 5, 1792. Incumbent President George Washington was elected to a second term by a unanimous vote in the electoral college, while John Adams was reelected as vice president. Washington was essentially unopposed, but Adams faced a competitive re-election against Governor George Clinton of New York.
George Clinton was an American soldier, statesman, and a prominent Democratic-Republican in the formative years of the United States of America. Clinton served as the fourth vice president of the United States from 1805 until his death in 1812. He also served as the first governor of New York from 1777 to 1795 and again from 1801 to 1804. Along with John C. Calhoun, he is one of two vice presidents to hold office under two consecutive presidents. He was also the first vice-president to die in office.
Fisher Ames was a Representative in the United States Congress from the 1st Congressional District of Massachusetts. He was an important leader of the Federalist Party in the House, and was noted for his oratorical skill.
Rufus King was an American Founding Father, lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress and the Philadelphia Convention and was one of the signers of the United States Constitution in 1787. After formation of the new Congress, he represented New York in the United States Senate. He emerged as a leading member of the Federalist Party and was the party's last presidential nominee during the 1816 presidential election.
James McHenry was a Scotch-Irish American military surgeon, statesman, and a Founding Father of the United States. McHenry was a signer of the United States Constitution from Maryland, initiated the recommendation for Congress to form the Navy, and was the eponym of Fort McHenry. He represented Maryland in the Continental Congress. He was a delegate to the Maryland State Convention of 1788, to vote whether Maryland should ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1796 to 1800, bridging the administrations of George Washington and John Adams. At the time of his death, McHenry owned 10 slaves, most of whom either worked as household servants or maintained his estate.
Samuel Dexter was an early American statesman who served both in Congress and in the Presidential Cabinets of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Dexter was a 1781 graduate of Harvard College. After receiving his degree he studied law, attained admission to the bar in 1784, and began to practice in Lunenburg, Massachusetts.
William Eustis was an early American physician, politician, and statesman from Massachusetts. Trained in medicine, he served as a military surgeon during the American Revolutionary War, notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He resumed medical practice after the war, but soon entered politics.
George Cabot was an American merchant, seaman, and politician from Massachusetts. He represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate and was the presiding officer of the infamous Hartford Convention.
Jacob Crowninshield was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and appointee to the position of U.S. Secretary of the Navy, which he never filled. His brother Benjamin Williams Crowninshield did successfully hold the post; the Crowninshield family in general was prominent in early American maritime affairs. He was the grandfather of Arent S. Crowninshield.
The presidency of John Adams, began on March 4, 1797, when John Adams was inaugurated as the second president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1801. Adams, who had served as vice president under George Washington, took office as president after winning the 1796 presidential election. The only member of the Federalist Party to ever serve as president, his presidency ended after a single term following his defeat in the 1800 presidential election. He was succeeded by Thomas Jefferson of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party.
Charles Wentworth Upham was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Upham was also a member, and President of the Massachusetts State Senate, the 7th Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, and twice a member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives. Upham was the cousin of George Baxter Upham and Jabez Upham. Upham was later a historian of Salem and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 when he lived there.
John Adams was an American Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War and in the early years of the new nation, he served the U.S. government as a senior diplomat in Europe. Adams was the first person to hold the office of vice president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with important contemporaries, including his wife and adviser Abigail Adams and his friend and political rival Thomas Jefferson.
Benjamin Pickman Jr. was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
The Federalist Era in American history ran from 1788 to 1800, a time when the Federalist Party and its predecessors were dominant in American politics. During this period, Federalists generally controlled Congress and enjoyed the support of President George Washington and President John Adams. The era saw the creation of a new, stronger federal government under the United States Constitution, a deepening of support for nationalism, and diminished fears of tyranny by a central government. The era began with the ratification of the United States Constitution and ended with the Democratic-Republican Party's victory in the 1800 elections.
Rev. Dudley Leavitt (1720–1762) was a Congregational minister born in New Hampshire, educated at Harvard College, who led a splinter group from the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts, during a wave of religious ferment nearly a decade before the Great Awakening. Following Leavitt's death at age 42, his congregation elected to christen itself 'The Church of Which the Rev. Dudley Leavitt was late Pastor' after the charismatic preacher. Leavitt Street in Salem is named for the early minister.
Dudley Leavitt Pickman (1779–1846) was an American merchant who built one of the great trading firms in Salem, Massachusetts, during the seaport's ascendancy as a trading power in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pickman was a partner in the firm Devereux, Pickman & Silsbee and a state senator. Among the wealthiest Salem merchants of his day, Pickman used his own clipper ships to trade with the Far East in an array of goods ranging from indigo and coffee to pepper and spices, and was one of the state's earliest financiers, backing everything from cotton and woolen mills to railroads to water-generated power plants. Pickman also helped found what is today's Peabody Essex Museum.
Joseph Dennie was an American author and journalist who was one of the foremost men of letters of the Federalist Era. A Federalist, Dennie is best remembered for his series of essays entitled The Lay Preacher and as the founding editor of The Port Folio, a journal espousing classical republican values. Port Folio was the most highly regarded and successful literary publication of its time, and the first important political and literary journal in the United States. Timothy Dwight IV once referred to Dennie as "the Addison of America" and "the father of American Belles-Lettres."
Events from the year 1795 in the United States.
Timothy Pickering | |
---|---|
3rd United States Secretary of State | |
In office December 10, 1795 –May 12, 1800 Ad interim: August 20 – December 10, 1795 | |
President | George Washington John Adams |
Preceded by | Edmund Randolph |
Succeeded by | John Marshall |
2nd United States Secretary of War | |
In office January 2,1795 –December 10,1795 | |
President | George Washington |
Preceded by | Henry Knox |
Succeeded by | James McHenry |
5th United States Postmaster General | |
In office August 12,1791 –January 1,1795 | |
President | George Washington |
Preceded by | Samuel Osgood |
Succeeded by | Joseph Habersham |
United States Senator from Massachusetts | |
In office March 4,1803 –March 3,1811 | |
Preceded by | Dwight Foster |
Succeeded by | Joseph Bradley Varnum |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts | |
In office March 4,1813 –March 3,1817 | |
Preceded by | Leonard White |
Succeeded by | Nathaniel Silsbee |
Constituency | 3rd district (1813–15) 2nd district (1815–17) |
Personal details | |
Born | Salem,Massachusetts Bay,British America | July 17,1745
Died | January 29,1829 83) Salem,Massachusetts,U.S. | (aged
Political party | Federalist |
Children | |
Education | Harvard College (BA) |
Signature | |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Branch/service | Massachusetts militia Continental Army United States Army |
Years of service | 1766–1785 |
Rank | Colonel |
Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War |
Timothy Pickering (July 17,1745 –January 29,1829) was the third United States Secretary of State under Presidents George Washington and John Adams. He also represented Massachusetts in both houses of Congress as a member of the Federalist Party. In 1795,he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. [1]
Born in Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay,Pickering began a legal career after graduating from Harvard College. He won election to the Massachusetts General Court and served as a county judge. He also became an officer in the colonial militia and served in the siege of Boston during the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. Later in the war,he was Adjutant General and Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. After the war,Pickering moved to the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania and took part in the then colony's 1787 ratifying convention for the United States Constitution.
President Washington appointed Pickering to the position of Postmaster General in 1791. After briefly serving as Secretary of War,Pickering became the Secretary of State in 1795,and remained in that office after President Adams was inaugurated. As Secretary of State,Pickering favored close relations with Britain. President Adams dismissed him in 1800 due to Pickering's opposition to peace with France during the Quasi-War.
Pickering won election to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate in 1803,becoming an ardent opponent of the Embargo Act of 1807. He continued to support Britain in the Napoleonic Wars,famously describing the country as "The World's last hope –Britain's Fast-anchored Isle." [2] He left the Senate in 1811 but served in the United States House of Representatives from 1813 to 1817. During the War of 1812,he became a leader of the New England secession movement and helped organize the Hartford Convention. The fallout from the convention ended Pickering's political career. He lived as a farmer in Salem until his death in 1829.
Pickering was born in Salem,Massachusetts to Deacon Timothy and Mary Wingate Pickering. He was one of nine children and the younger brother of John Pickering (not to be confused with the New Hampshire judge) who would eventually serve as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. [3] He attended grammar school in Salem and graduated from Harvard College in 1763. Salem minister William Bentley noted on Pickering:"From his youth his townsmen proclaim him assuming,turbulent,&headstrong." [4]
After graduating from Harvard,Pickering returned to Salem where he began working for John Higginson,the town clerk and Essex County register of deeds. Pickering was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1768 and,in 1774,he succeeded Higginson as register of deeds. Soon after,he was elected to represent Salem in the Massachusetts General Court and served as a justice in the Essex County Court of Common Pleas. On April 8,1766,he married Rebecca White of Salem. [5]
In January 1766,Pickering was commissioned a lieutenant in the Essex County militia. He was promoted to captain three years later. In 1769,he published his ideas on drilling soldiers in the Essex Gazette. These were published in 1775 as "An Easy Plan for a Militia." [6] The manual was used as the Continental Army drill book until replaced by Baron von Steuben's Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States [7]
On February 26,1775,men under Pickering's command were involved in one of the earliest military engagements in the American Revolution,a confrontation locally referred to as "Leslie's Retreat." A detachment of British regulars under British Army Lt. Colonel Alexander Leslie was dispatched from Boston to search North Salem for contraband artillery. Leslie's men were thwarted from crossing the North River bridge and searching the outlying farms by Pickering's militia and citizens of Salem. Many of these "citizens" were members of Salem's North Church,which was just a short distance from the North Bridge. Col. Leslie chose a Sunday morning to raid Salem knowing that the citizens would be attending church. They were,of course,but the Rev. Thomas Barnard Jr. of the North Church famously left his pulpit that morning to meet the British troops at the bridge. A fast rider from Marblehead had ridden ahead of the British to warn Mr. Barnard. Barnard is credited with convincing Col. Leslie to retreat in peace. If he had not,Pickering's troops would have fired the "shot heard 'round the world" and started the war. Two months later,Pickering's troops marched to take part in the Battles of Lexington and Concord but arrived too late to play a major role. They then became part of the New England army assembling outside Boston to lay siege to the city.
In December 1776,he led a well-drilled regiment of the Essex County militia to New York,where General George Washington took notice and offered Pickering the position of adjutant general of the Continental Army in 1777 with the rank of colonel. In this capacity he oversaw the building of the Great chain which was forged at the Stirling Iron Works. The chain blocked the Royal Navy from proceeding up the Hudson River past West Point and protected that important fort from attack for the duration of the conflict.
He was widely praised for his work in supplying the troops during the remainder of the conflict. In August 1780,the Continental Congress elected Pickering Quartermaster General. [8]
After the end of the American Revolution,Pickering made several failed attempts at financial success. In 1783,he embarked on a mercantile partnership with Samuel Hodgdon that failed two years later. In 1786,he moved to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania where he assumed a series of offices at the head of Luzerne County. When he attempted to settle a controversy generated by John Armstrong who was antagonizing Connecticut settlers living in the area,Pickering was captured and held hostage for nineteen days. In 1787,he was part of the Pennsylvania convention held to consider ratification of the United States Constitution. [9]
After the first of Pickering's two successful attempts to make money speculating in Pennsylvania frontier land,President Washington appointed him commissioner to the Iroquois;and Pickering represented the United States in the negotiation of the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Iroquois in 1794.
Washington brought Pickering into the government as Postmaster General in 1791. He remained in Washington's cabinet and then that of John Adams for nine years,serving as postmaster general until 1795,Secretary of War for a brief time in 1795,then Secretary of State from 1795 to 1800. As Secretary of State he is most remembered for his strong Federalist Party attachments to British causes,even willingness to wage war with France in service of these causes during the Adams administration. In 1799 Pickering hired Joseph Dennie as his private secretary. [10]
In 1799 Pickering sailed to England on the merchantman Washington. On October 24 the French privateer Bellona attacked Washington,even though she was flying American colours. Despite the French vessel being better armed and much more heavily manned,Washington succeeded in repelling the attack. [11]
After a quarrel with President John Adams over Adams's plan to make peace with France,Pickering was dismissed from office in May 1800. He was named to the United States Senate as a senator from Massachusetts in 1803 as a member of the Federalist Party. In 1804,Pickering and a band of Federalists,agitated at the lack of support for Federalists,attempted to gain support for the secession of New England and New York from the Jeffersonian United States. The plan was abandoned following Aaron Burr's defeat in the 1804 New York gubernatorial election. [12] The irony of a Federalist moving against the national government was not lost among his dissenters. Pickering opposed the American seizure and annexation of Spanish West Florida in 1810,which he believed was both unconstitutional and an act of aggression against a friendly power. [13]
Near the end of his only term as a senator,Pickering challenged Jefferson's Embargo Act,reviving his plan for a convention of the New England states to oppose the act and potentially secede from the union. [14] He held several conferences with the special British envoy George Rose and proposed the creation of a pro-British party in New England and urged Rose to persuade British Foreign Secretary George Canning to maintain his hard line against America with the hopes that Jefferson would resort to even more extreme measures,which would ultimately effect a political suicide for the Republicans. Pickering also published his open letter to the Massachusetts Republican governor,which he refused even to read;it contained harsh criticism of the Embargo Act,claimed that Jefferson had presented no real arguments for its enactment,and called for its nullification by the state legislators. [15] Pickering was charged with reading confidential documents in an open Senate session before an injunction of secrecy had been removed.[ specify ] In response to that charge,the Senate censured Pickering by a vote of 20–7 on January 2,1811. [16]
Pickering was later elected to the United States House of Representatives in the 1812 election,where he remained until 1817. His congressional career is best remembered for his leadership of the New England secession movement (see Essex Junto and the Hartford Convention). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1815. [17]
After Pickering was denied re-election in 1816,he retired to Salem,where he lived as a farmer until his death in 1829,aged 83.