Timothy Pickering | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byGilbert Stuart | |
| 3rdUnited 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 |
| 2ndUnited States Secretary of War | |
| In office January 2, 1795 – December 10, 1795 | |
| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Henry Knox |
| Succeeded by | James McHenry |
| 5thUnited 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 fromMassachusetts | |
| 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 | (1745-07-17)July 17, 1745 |
| Died | January 29, 1829(1829-01-29) (aged 83) Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| 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 thirdUnited States Secretary of State, serving under PresidentsGeorge Washington andJohn Adams. He also representedMassachusetts in both houses ofCongress as a member of theFederalist Party. In 1795, he was elected a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society.[1]
Born inSalem in theProvince of Massachusetts Bay, Pickering began a legal career after graduating fromHarvard College. He won election to theMassachusetts General Court and served as a county judge. He also became an officer in the colonial militia and served in thesiege of Boston during the early stages of theAmerican Revolutionary War. Later in the war, he was Adjutant General andQuartermaster General of theContinental Army. After the war, Pickering moved to theWyoming Valley ofPennsylvania and took part in the then colony's 1787 ratifying convention for theUnited States Constitution.
President Washington appointed Pickering to the position ofPostmaster General in 1791. After briefly serving asSecretary 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 withBritain. President Adams dismissed him in 1800 due to Pickering's opposition to peace withFrance during theQuasi-War.
Pickering won election to represent Massachusetts in theUnited States Senate in 1803, becoming an ardent opponent of theEmbargo Act of 1807. He continued to support Britain in theNapoleonic 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 theUnited States House of Representatives from 1813 to 1817. During theWar of 1812, he became a leader of theNew England secession movement and helped organize theHartford 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 inSalem, 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 theNew Hampshire judge) who would eventually serve as Speaker of theMassachusetts House of Representatives.[3] He attended grammar school in Salem and graduated fromHarvard College in 1763. Salem ministerWilliam 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 andEssex 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 theMassachusetts 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 theEssex 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 byBaron 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 fromBoston 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 theNorth 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 theBattles 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 laysiege to the city.
In December 1776, he led a well-drilled regiment of the Essex County militia to New York, where GeneralGeorge Washington took notice and offered Pickering the position ofadjutant general of theContinental Army in 1777 with the rank of colonel. In this capacity he oversaw the building of theGreat chain which was forged at theStirling 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, theContinental Congress elected PickeringQuartermaster 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 theWyoming Valley in Pennsylvania where he assumed a series of offices at the head ofLuzerne County. When he attempted to settle a controversy generated byJohn Armstrong who was antagonizingConnecticut 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 theUnited States Constitution.[9]
After the first of Pickering's two successful attempts to make money speculating inPennsylvania frontier land, President Washington appointed him commissioner to theIroquois; and Pickering represented the United States in the negotiation of theTreaty of Canandaigua with the Iroquois in 1794.
Washington brought Pickering into the government asPostmaster 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, thenSecretary of State from 1795 to 1800. As Secretary of State he is most remembered for his strongFederalist Party attachments to British causes, even willingness to wage war with France in service of these causes during the Adams administration. In 1799 Pickering hiredJoseph Dennie as his private secretary.[10]
In 1799 Pickering sailed to England on the merchantmanWashington. On October 24 the French privateerBellona attackedWashington, 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]
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After a quarrel with PresidentJohn Adams over Adams's plan to make peace withFrance, Pickering was dismissed from office in May 1800. After an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1802,[12] he was named to theUnited States Senate as a senator fromMassachusetts in 1803 as a member of theFederalist 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 followingAaron Burr's defeat in the1804 New York gubernatorial election.[13] The irony of a Federalist moving against the national government was not lost among his dissenters. Pickering opposed the American seizure and annexation of SpanishWest Florida in 1810, which he believed was bothunconstitutional and an act of aggression against a friendly power.[14]
Near the end of his only term as a senator, Pickering challenged Jefferson'sEmbargo Act, reviving his plan for a convention of the New England states to oppose the act and potentially secede from the union.[15] He held several conferences with the special British envoyGeorge Rose and proposed the creation of a pro-British party in New England and urged Rose to persuade British Foreign SecretaryGeorge 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.[16] Pickering was charged with reading confidential documents in an open Senate session before aninjunction of secrecy had been removed.[specify] In response to that charge, the Senatecensured Pickering by a vote of 20–7 on January 2, 1811.[17]
Pickering was later elected to theUnited States House of Representatives in the1812 election, where he remained until 1817. His congressional career is best remembered for his leadership of theNew England secession movement (seeEssex Junto and theHartford Convention). He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1815.[18]
After Pickering was denied re-election in 1816, he retired toSalem, where he lived as a farmer until his death in 1829, aged 83.
In 1799Fort Pickering in Salem, Massachusetts was named for him.[19]
In 1942, aUnited StatesLiberty ship named theSSTimothy Pickering was launched. She was lost offSicily in 1943.
Until the 1990s, Pickering's ancestral home, the circa 1651Pickering House, was the oldest house in the United States to be owned by the same family continually.
| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Adjutant Generals of the Army 1777–1778 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | United States Postmaster General 1791–1795 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of War 1795 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of State 1795–1800 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Massachusetts 1803–1811 Served alongside:John Quincy Adams,James Lloyd | Succeeded by |
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district 1813–1815 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district 1815–1817 | Succeeded by |
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