Jeremiah
Wadsworth
Born:
Hartford; July 12, 1743
Died: Hartford; April 30, 1804
Entry
by Albert E. Van Dusen
When
only four years old, Wadsworth lost his father and was raised
by his uncle, Matthew Tallcott (1713-1802), a Middletown sea captain,
merchant, and shipowner. At eighteen, to improve his health he
went to sea in one of his uncle's vessels, rising to the rank
of captain during his ten-year career.
In
April 1775 the General Assembly appointed him one of nine commissaries
under Commissary General Joseph Trumbull to obtain supplies for
Connecticut troops serving in Massachusetts. His experience as
a merchant enabled him to procure far more supplies than any other
commissary. In December 1776 he won appointment by the assembly
as the commissary general of supplies. When Congress appointed
him commissary general of purchases in 1778 at Washington's insistence,
he promptly reorganized and expanded the office to include all
states except Georgia and South Carolina.
In
the summer of 1778 Congress made him responsible for supplying
the French fleet at Newport, but he resigned in December 1779,
feeling that Congress lacked confidence in him. At the request
of Rochambeau, commander of the French troops at Newport, in October
1780 he joined with John Carter in a firm which supplied food
for the French troops. With payment to farmers made promptly and
in sound French money, the French at times were glutted with food
while American troops suffered, resulting in the adoption of procedures
which were fair to both French and American armies. For Wadsworth
the French contract proved very lucrative, since he received a
five percent commission on his purchases.
Elected
in May 1780 as a deputy, he became a member of the upper house
in 1795, serving until 1801. He served in Congress from 1787 to
1791 and 1793 to 1795, thus being a member of the First Federal
Congress. A member of Connecticut's ratifying convention in 1788,
he gave strong support to the proposed Federal Constitution.
His
varied business interests were widespread: a founder of the Bank
of North America in Philadelphia, of the Hartford Bank, and of
the Hartford Library Company; director of the United States Bank;
president of the Bank of New York; a founder of the Hartford Manufacturing
Company, which was the first wool-manufacturing business and the
first to use power machinery in the United States; and a partner
in the Hartford and New Haven Insurance Company, Connecticut's
first insurance company. Interested in the improvement of agriculture,
he introduced new breeds of cattle from abroad. He represented
well the new class of entrepreneurs who led the rapid economic
expansion of the young nation.
For
Further Reading
Destler,
Chester M. Connecticut: The Provisions State. Chester,
Connecticut, 1973.
*
Entry under revision.
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