Timothy Pickering
3rd United States Secretary of State
In office December 10, 1795 – May 12, 1800
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
2nd United States Postmaster General
In office August 12, 1791 – January 1, 1795
President	George Washington
Preceded by	Samuel Osgood
Succeeded by	Joseph Habersham
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 2nd district
In office March 4, 1815 – March 4, 1817
Preceded by	William Reed
Succeeded by	Nathaniel Silsbee
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 3rd district
In office March 4, 1813 – March 4, 1815
Preceded by	Leonard White
Succeeded by	Jeremiah Nelson
United States Senator from Massachusetts
In office March 4, 1803 – March 4, 1811
Preceded by	Dwight Foster
Succeeded by	Joseph Varnum
Personal details
Born	(1745-07-17)July 17, 1745 Salem, Massachusetts Bay
Died	January 29, 1829(1829-01-29) (aged 83) Salem, Massachusetts, United States
Political party	Federalist Party
Alma mater	Harvard University
Religion	Unitarianism
Signature
Military service
Service/branch	Massachusetts militia Continental Army
Years of service	1766-1785
Rank	Colonel
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.

Pickering had previously served in the Massachusetts militia and Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is often remembered for his Anglophile attitudes, and pushed for pro-British policies during his political career. Pickering famously describing the country as "The World's last hope - Britain's Fast-anchored Isle" during the Napoleonic Wars.^[1] He later became involved with the Hartford Convention, and along with many other Federalists opposed the War of 1812.

Early life[link]

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.^[2] 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." ^[3]

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, 1776, he married Rebecca White of Salem.^[4]

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."^[5] 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^[6]

American Revolutionary War[link]

Salem Incident[link]

In February 1775 men under Pickering's command were involved in a bloodless confrontration with a detachment of British regulars under Alexander Leslie who had been despatched from Boston to search Salem for contraband artillery. Two months later, Pickering's troops marched to take part in the Battle 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.

Adjutant General[link]

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.^[7]

Letter from Timothy Pickering to Major General Lord Sterling, 1777

Rise to power[link]

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.^[8]

After the first of Pickering's two successful 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[link]

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.^[9]

Middle years[link]

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. 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.^[10] 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 Legacy[link]

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[link]

Citations and notes

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[link]

• Timothy Pickering at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Timothy Pickering

• Biography and portrait at Quartermaster-Generals
• Timothy Pickering at Find a Grave

v t e United States Postmasters General Confederal Franklin Bache Hazard Federal Osgood Pickering Habersham G. Granger Meigs McLean Cabinet level Barry Kendall Niles F. Granger Wickliffe Johnson Collamer Hall Hubbard Campbell A. Brown Holt King Blair Dennison Randall Creswell Marshall Jewell Tyner Key Maynard James Howe Gresham Hatton Vilas Dickinson Wanamaker Bissell Wilson Gary Smith Payne Wynne Cortelyou Meyer Hitchcock Burleson Hays Work New W. Brown Farley Walker Hannegan Donaldson Summerfield Day Gronouski O'Brien Watson Blount U.S. Postal Service Blount Klassen Bailar Bolger Carlin Casey Tisch Frank Runyon Henderson Potter Donahoe

v t e Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army Secretaries at War B. Lincoln Knox Secretaries of War Knox Pickering McHenry Dexter Dearborn Eustis Armstrong Monroe W. Crawford Calhoun Barbour P. Porter Eaton Cass Poinsett Bell Spencer J. Porter Wilkins Marcy G. Crawford Conrad J. Davis Floyd Holt S. Cameron Stanton Schofield Rawlins Belknap A. Taft J. Cameron McCrary Ramsey R. Lincoln Endicott Proctor Elkins Lamont Alger Root W. Taft Wright Dickinson Stimson Garrison Baker Weeks D. Davis Good Hurley Dern Woodring Stimson Patterson Royall Secretaries of the Army Royall Gray Pace Stevens Brucker Stahr Vance Ailes Resor Froehlke Callaway Hoffmann C. Alexander Marsh Stone West Caldera White Harvey Geren McHugh Assistant Secretaries of War Scott Dana Eckert Grant Doe Meiklejohn Sanger Oliver Breckinridge Ingraham Crowell Williams Wainwright D. Davis MacNider Hurley Payne Woodring L. Johnson Patterson McCloy Petersen Under Secretaries of the Army Draper Gray Voorhees A. Alexander Bendetsen E. Johnson Slezak Finucane Milton Ailes Ignatius Resor McGiffert Beal BeLieu Staudt Augustine LaBerge Ambrose Stone Shannon Reeder Walker Rostker Dahlberg Brownlee Geren Ford Westphal

v t e State Secretaries of the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1781–1789 R. Livingston Jay Secretary of State 1789–present Jefferson Randolph Pickering J. Marshall Madison Smith Monroe Adams Clay Van Buren E. Livingston McLane Forsyth Webster Upshur Calhoun Buchanan Clayton Webster Everett Marcy Cass Black Seward Washburne Fish Evarts Blaine Frelinghuysen Bayard Blaine Foster Gresham Olney Sherman Day Hay Root Bacon Knox Bryan Lansing Colby Hughes Kellogg Stimson Hull Stettinius Byrnes G Marshall Acheson Dulles Herter Rusk Rogers Kissinger Vance Muskie Haig Shultz Baker Eagleburger Christopher Albright Powell Rice Clinton

v t e United States Senators from Massachusetts Class 1 Dalton Cabot Goodhue Mason Adams Lloyd Gore Ashmun Mellen Mills Webster Choate Webster Winthrop Rantoul Sumner Washburn Dawes Lodge, Sr. Butler Walsh Lodge, Jr. J. Kennedy Smith E. Kennedy Kirk Brown Class 2 Strong Sedgwick Dexter Foster Pickering Varnum Otis Lloyd Silsbee Davis Bates Davis Everett Rockwell Wilson Boutwell Hoar Crane J. Weeks Walsh Gillett Coolidge Lodge, Jr. S. Weeks Saltonstall Brooke Tsongas Kerry

v t e Cabinet of President George Washington (1789–1797) Vice President John Adams (1789–1797) Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay (1789) Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (1790–1793) Edmund Randolph (1794–1795) Timothy Pickering (1795–1797) Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1789–1795) Oliver Wolcott, Jr. (1795–1797) Secretary of War Henry Knox (1789–1794) Timothy Pickering (1795) James McHenry (1796–1797) Attorney General Edmund Randolph (1789–1794) William Bradford (1794–1795) Charles Lee (1795–1797) Postmaster General Samuel Osgood (1789–1791) Timothy Pickering (1791–1795) Joseph Habersham (1795–1797)

v t e Cabinet of President John Adams (1797–1801) Vice President Thomas Jefferson (1797–1801) Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (1797–1800) John Marshall (1800–1801) Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr. (1797–1801) Samuel Dexter (1801) Secretary of War James McHenry (1796–1800) Samuel Dexter (1800–1801) Attorney General Charles Lee (1797–1801) Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert (1798–1801)

David Barton
United States Senator from Missouri
In office August 10, 1821 – March 4, 1831
Preceded by	(none)
Succeeded by	Alexander Buckner
Personal details
Born	(1783-12-14)December 14, 1783 Greeneville, North Carolina (now Tennessee)
Died	September 28, 1837(1837-09-28) (aged 53) Boonville, Missouri
Political party	Democratic-Republican

David Barton (December 14, 1783 – September 28, 1837) was one of the first U.S. senators from Missouri, serving 1821–1831.^[1]

Barton was born near Greeneville, Tennessee, then part of North Carolina. He was a major political presence in early Missouri, serving as president of the state's constitutional convention, speaker of the Missouri territorial House of Representatives, and as one of its first pair of U.S. Senators. Barton County, Missouri is named for him.

He was the brother of Joshua Barton, the first Missouri Secretary of State. David opposed the reappointment of William Rector to the Office of Surveyor General for Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas, saying that Rector was using his relatives for surveying positions and paying them too much while Rector was surveying the Louisiana Purchase. Joshua published the charges in the St. Louis Republican under the signature of "Philo." Rector's brother Thomas Rector challenged Joshua to a duel in 1823 on Bloody Island (Mississippi River) and killed Joshua. President James Madison did not reappoint Rector.^[2]

Barton switched parties three times in his political life. He was first elected as a Democratic-Republican; he then switched to an Adams Democrat for his re-election in 1825. When he ran for the Senate again in 1830 he switched to being an Anti-Jacksonian candidate. In the Senate, he served as chairman of the committee on public lands.^[3] He was a member of the Missouri State Senate in 1834-1835.

References[link]

External links[link]

• David Barton at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

v t e United States Senators from Missouri Class 1 Benton Geyer Polk Henderson Schurz Cockrell Warner Reed Patterson Truman Briggs Kem Symington Danforth Ashcroft Carnahan Talent McCaskill Class 3 Barton Buckner Linn Atchison Green Johnson Wilson Brown Drake Jewett Blair Bogy Armstrong Shields Vest Stone Wilfley Spencer Williams Hawes Clark Donnell Hennings Long Eagleton Bond Blunt