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Timothy Pickering
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Pickering, Timothy (1745-1829) Revolutionary War army officer, U.S. representative, U.S. senator, and secretary of state, born in Massachusetts. Pickering became a member of that colony's Committee of Correspondence and supported the cause of independence, although he opposed the creation of a colonial army. In 1777, when it was clear that there was to be no compromise between the Crown and the colonists, he accepted a commission in the Continental army. As quartermaster, he found it increasingly difficult to supply the troops and resigned, disillusioned. In 1790, he was appointed by President George Washington to negotiate with the Seneca Indians, and did so patiently and effectively, attempting to protect them and other tribes from land speculators and retroceding to them thousands of acres of land. In 1795 Washington named him secretary of war. He supported Jay's Treaty and was rewarded later that year with the position of secretary of state. He conspired to undermine President John Adams's attempts to cement peace with France and as a result was dismissed from his post. In 1803 he was appointed to fill out the terms of a retiring U.S. senator and during his time in the Senate remained rigidly pro-British and anti-Republican. Denied a second term in the Senate, he won election to the House of Representatives, where he opposed the War of 1812; having antagonized the political powers, in 1816 he was denied renomination and retired from politics.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
| Biography: Timothy Pickering |
Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) was an American Revolutionary soldier before becoming secretary of war and then secretary of state under President Washington.
Timothy Pickering was born in Salem, Mass., on July 17, 1745, the son of Timothy and Mary Wingate Pickering. He graduated from Harvard College in 1763, studied law in Salem while serving as a clerk in Essex County, and was admitted to the bar in 1768. He became register of deeds in 1774. In 1766 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the county militia. He was a colonel by 1775 and was appointed by George Washington as adjutant general of the U.S. Army in 1777, becoming quartermaster general in 1780.
After the Revolution, Pickering became a merchant in Philadelphia. He moved in 1787 to western Pennsylvania, where he was elected to represent Luzerne County in the state convention that ratified the Federal Constitution. Appointed as postmaster general by President Washington in 1791, he served for over 3 years before becoming secretary of war in January 1795. Washington made him secretary of state late in 1795, and he continued in that post when John Adams became president.
An ardent Federalist and a bitter critic of the French Revolution, Pickering became a leading advocate of the quasi-war with France that followed the "XYZ affair" in 1798. Fearful of "French influence" in American politics, he viewed the Jeffersonian Republicans as subversives, and he supervised the enforcement of the Sedition Law against Jeffersonian critics of the Adams administration. Always more loyal to Alexander Hamilton than to Adams, however, Pickering broke with the President when Adams insisted on negotiating a settlement with France. Adams finally dismissed him from the Cabinet on May 10, 1800.
After a brief return to western Pennsylvania, Pickering moved to Massachusetts, where he became U.S. senator in 1803. A virulent opponent of presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he urged the establishment of a northern confederacy in 1804, arguing that peaceful secession was the only way to protect New England's commercial interests. Defeated for the Senate in 1811, he served on the Executive Council of Massachusetts in 1812-1813 before winning election to Congress, where he again became Madison's leading opponent from 1813 to 1817. A controversialist to the end, he wrote a polemical pamphlet criticizing John Adams in 1824. Pickering died in Salem on Jan. 29, 1829.
Further Reading
The biography of Pickering by Octavius Pickering and C. W. Upham, The Life of Timothy Pickering (4 vols., 1867-1873), is uncritical. Specialized studies include Hervey P. Prentiss, Timothy Pickering as the Leader of New England Federalism, 1800-1815 (1934), and Gerald H. Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy, 1795-1800 (1969).
Additional Sources
Clarfield, Gerard H., Timothy Pickering and the American Republic, Pittsburgh, PA.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Timothy Pickering |
Pickering, Timothy, 1745-1829, American political leader and Revolutionary War army officer, b. Salem, Mass. He was admitted to the bar (1768) and played an active part in pre-Revolutionary activities against the British. In 1774 and 1775 he was connected with the Massachusetts committee of correspondence. A colonel in the Massachusetts militia, he joined George Washington's army in the American Revolution, served (1777) as Washington's adjutant-general, was a member of the board of war, and was (1780-85) quartermaster general. After the Revolution, he moved to Pennsylvania and was sent by the Pennsylvania government to the Wyoming valley region of Pennsylvania to organize the newly formed Luzerne co. and to represent the state in the dispute over land claims between Connecticut settlers and Pennsylvania. He was a member of the state constitutional convention (1789-90) and negotiated treaties with various Native American tribes for the federal government. He was Postmaster General (1791-95), Secretary of War (1795), and Secretary of State (1795-1800). Pickering was dismissed after President John Adams learned that he had been scheming with the Alexander Hamilton branch of the Federalist party to steer the United States into war with France. Returning to Massachusetts, he became chief justice of the court of common pleas and was later a U.S. Senator (1803-11) and Representative (1813-17). A strong Federalist and an opponent of Adams, Pickering was a leading figure in the Essex Junto and an outspoken opponent of the War of 1812. He wrote Political Essays (1812).
Bibliography
See biography by his son, O. Pickering, and C. W. Upham (4 vol., 1867-73); G. H. Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy, 1795-1800 (1969).
| Wikipedia: Timothy Pickering |
| Timothy Pickering | |
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| In office August 12, 1791 – January 1, 1795 |
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| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Samuel Osgood |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Habersham |
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| In office January 2, 1795 – December 10, 1795 |
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| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Henry Knox |
| Succeeded by | James McHenry |
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| In office December 10, 1795 – May 12, 1800 |
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| President | George Washington (1795-1797) John Adams (1797-1800) |
| Preceded by | Edmund Randolph |
| Succeeded by | John Marshall |
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| In office March 4, 1803 – March 3, 1811 |
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| Preceded by | Dwight Foster |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Varnum |
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| In office March 4, 1813 – March 3, 1815 |
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| Preceded by | Leonard White |
| Succeeded by | Jeremiah Nelson |
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| In office March 4, 1815 – March 3, 1817 |
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| Preceded by | William Reed |
| Succeeded by | Nathaniel Silsbee |
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| Born | July 17, 1745 Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | January 29, 1829 (aged 83) Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Federalist |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Profession | Politician |
| Religion | Unitarian |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | Essex County, Massachusetts Militia Continental Army |
| Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War |
Timothy Pickering (July 17, 1745 – January 29, 1829) was a politician from Massachusetts who served in a variety of roles, most notably as the third United States Secretary of State, serving in that office from 1795 to 1800 under Presidents George Washington and John Adams.
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Biography
Early years
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.[1] He attended grammar school in Salem and graduated from Harvard University in 1763. Salem minister William Bentley noted on Pickering: "From his youth his townsmen proclaim him assuming, turbulent, & headstrong." [2]
After graduating from Harvard, Pickering returned to Salem where he began working for John Higginson, the town clerk and Essex County, Massachusetts 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, 1776, he married Rebecca White of Salem. [3]
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."[4] 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[5]
The American Revolution
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. 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. [6]
Rise to power
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 evict 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.[7]
After the first of Pickering's two failed attempts to make money speculating in Pennsylvania frontier land, now-President Washington appointed him commissioner to the Iroquois Indians; and Pickering represented the United States in the negotiation of the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Iroquois in 1794.
Cabinet Member
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 English 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.[8]
Middle years
After a quarrel with President John Adams over Adams's plan to make peace with France, Pickering was dismissed from office in May 1800. In 1802 Pickering and a band of Federalists, agitated at the lack of support for Federalists, attempted to gain support for the secession of New England from the Jeffersonian United States. The irony of a Federalist moving against the national government was not lost among his dissenters. He was named to the United States Senate as a senator from Massachusetts in 1803 as a member of the Federalist Party. He lost his senate seat in 1811, and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in U.S. House election, 1812, 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).
Later years and afterwards
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. In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Timothy Pickering was launched. She was lost off Sicily in 1945. 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.
References
- Citations and notes
- ^ Mary Pickering, sister of Timothy, was married to Salem Congregational minister Dudley Leavitt, for whom Salem's Leavitt Street is named. A Harvard-educated native of Stratham, New Hampshire, Leavitt died an untimely death in 1762 at age 42. Mary Pickering Leavitt remarried Nathaniel Peaselee Sargeant of Haverhill, Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Mary Pickering's daughter Elizabeth Pickering Leavitt married Salem merchant William Pickman.[1]
- ^ The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Smith, 1962), 3:352.
- ^ Octavius Pickering and Charles W. Upham, The Life of Timothy Pickering, 4 vols. (Boston: Little Brown, 1867-73), 1:7-15, 31.
- ^ Pickering and Upham, Life of Timothy Pickering, 1:85.
- ^ Garry Wills (2003). "Before 1800". Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power. Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 20-21. ISBN 0618343989.
- ^ Pickering and Upham, Life of Timothy Pickering, 1:34-139, 251-522; 2:69-508; Gerard H. Clarfield, Timothy Pickering and the American Republic (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980), 47-144; Edward Hake Phillips, "Salem, Timothy Pickering, and the American Revolution," Essex Institute Historical Collections 111, 1 (1975): 65-78; David McLean, Timothy Pickering and the Age of the American Revolution (New York: Arno Press, 1982).
- ^ Pickering and Upham, Life of Timothy Pickering, 1:532-35; 2:140-73, 182-325, 369-445; Clarfield, Pickering and the Republic, 85-115; Jeffrey Paul Brown, “Timothy Pickering and the Northwest Territory,” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 53, 4 (1982): 117-32.
- ^ Clapp, William Warland (1880). Joseph Dennie: Editor of "The Port Folio," and author of "The Lay Preacher.". John Wilson and Son. p. 32.
- General information
- Timothy Pickering at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Clarfield, Gerard H. "Postscript to the Jay Treaty: Timothy Pickering and Anglo-American Relations, 1795-1797," William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., 23, 1 (1966): 106-20.
- Clarfield, Gerard H. Timothy Pickering and American Diplomacy, 1795-1800. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1969.
- Clarfield, Gerard. Timothy Pickering and the American Republic. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.
- Clarfield, Gerard H. "Timothy Pickering and French Diplomacy, 1795-1796." Essex Institute Historical Collections 104, 1 (1965): 58-74.
- Clarfield, Gerard H. "Victory in the West: A Study of the Role of Timothy Pickering in the Successful Consummation of Pinckney‘s Treaty," Essex Institute Historical Collections 101, 4 (1965): 333-53.
- Garraty, John A. and Mark C. Carnes. American National Biography, vol. 17, "Pickering, Timothy". New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Guidorizzi, Richard Peter. "Timothy Pickering: Opposition Politics in the Early Years of the Republic" Ph.D. diss, St. John’s University, 1968.
- Hickey, Donald R. "Timothy Pickering and the Haitian Slave Revolt: A Letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1806," Essex Institute Historical Collections 120, 3 (1984): 149-63.
- McCurdy, John Gilbert. "'Your Affectionate Brother': Complementary Manhoods in the Letters of John and Timothy Pickering." Early American Studies 4, 2 (Fall 2006): 512-545.
- McLean, David. Timothy Pickering and the Age of the American Revolution. New York: Arno Press, 1982.
- Pickering, Octavius, and Charles W. Upham. The Life of Timothy Pickering. 4 vols. Boston: Little Brown, 1867-73.
- Phillips, Edward Hake. "The Public Career of Timothy Pickering, Federalist, 1745-1802." Ph.D. diss, Harvard University, 1952.
- Phillips, Edward Hake. "Salem, Timothy Pickering, and the American Revolution." Essex Institute Historical Collections 111, 1 (1975): 65-78.
- Phillips, Edward Hake. "Timothy Pickering at His Best: Indian Commissioner, 1790-1794." Essex Institute Historical Collections 102, 3 (1966): 163-202.
- Prentiss, Harvey Pittman. Timothy Pickering as the Leader of New England Federalism, 1800-1815. New York: DaCapo Press, 1972.
- Wilbur, William Allan. "Crisis in Leadership: Alexander Hamilton, Timothy Pickering and the Politics of Federalism, 1795-1804." Ph.D. diss, Syracuse University, 1969.
- Wilbur, W. Allan. "Timothy Pickering: Federalist, Politician, An Historical Perspective," Historian 34, 2 (1972): 278-92.
- Wilentz, Sean "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln" W.W. Norton. New York. 2005.
External links
- Timothy Pickering at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Biography and portrait at Quartermaster-Generals
- Timothy Pickering at Find a Grave
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Mentioned in
- Essex Junto (organization, United States – in history, business, law)
- Hartford Convention (historical event, United States – in politics)
- Edmund Randolph
- censure
- Alien and Sedition Laws (American history)
- Federalist Party (American history)
- Charles Lee
- SS Timothy Pickering
- Postal Service, U.S (American history)
- Thomas Pickering
- Leonard White
- 1797 (chronology)
- 1799 (chronology)
- 1800 (chronology)
