Hosea Moffitt Explained

Hosea Moffitt
State:New York
District:10th
Term Start:March 4, 1813
Term End:March 3, 1817
Predecessor:Silas Stow
Successor:John P. Cushman
Birth Date:17 November 1757
Birth Place:Killingly, Connecticut Colony, British America
Death Place:Stephentown, New York, U.S.
Party:Federalist

Hosea Moffitt (November 17, 1757August 31, 1825) was a U.S. Representative from New York.

Biography

Moffitt was born in Killingly in the Connecticut Colony on November 17, 1757.[1] During the Revolutionary War he served in the Albany County Militia as an Ensign and later Lieutenant of the 4th Regiment (Van Rensselaer's Regiment), also called the 2nd Rensselaerwyck Battalion.[2]

Moffitt studied law and was admitted to the bar. In addition to practicing as an attorney, he was the Stephentown agent for Stephen Van Rensselaer, whose Manor of Rensselaerswyck included Stephentown. Moffitt was also an active businessman and banker.[3]

He served on the local school board,[4] [5] was named a Justice of the Peace in 1791,[6] and he was Town Clerk in 1791 and 1797.[7] He served as member of the New York State Assembly from 1794 to 1798, and again from 1800 to 1801.[8]

He remained in the militia after the Revolution, and attained command of a brigade and the rank of Brigadier General.[9] [10] [11]

He was elected Town Supervisor and served from 1806 to 1809.[12] From 1810 to 1811 he was Sheriff of Rensselaer County, New York.[13] [14] [15]

Moffitt was elected as a Federalist to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1817.[16]

He was a trustee of the Stephentown Presbyterian Church, and was appointed to the board of managers of the Rensselaer County Bible Society in 1815.[17]

He died in Stephentown on August 31, 1825[18] and was interred at the Old Presbyterian Cemetery on "Presbyterian Hill" in the Stephentown hamlet of Garfield.[19]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), entry for Hosea Moffitt, retrieved December 27, 2013
  2. Jerry Kail, Who Was Who During the American Revolution, 1976, page 250
  3. A. J. Weise, History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County, From the Colonization of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to the Present Time, 1880, page 22
  4. http://stephentowngenealogy.com/ Stephentown Genealogy
  5. Weed, Parsons & Co., Laws of the State of New York, Volume IV, 1887, page 356
  6. A. J. Weise, History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County, From the Colonization of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to the Present Time, 1880, page 7
  7. http://stephentowngenealogy.com/ Stephentown Genealogy
  8. New York State Assembly, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Volume 75, Issue 7, 1852, pages 183-184
  9. A. J. Weise, History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County, From the Colonization of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to the Present Time, 1880, page 130
  10. George Baker Anderson, Landmarks of Rensselaer County, New York, 1897, page 82
  11. Council of Appointment of the State of New York, Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment, Volume 1, 1901, page 876
  12. http://stephentowngenealogy.com/ Stephentown Genealogy
  13. David Hackett Fischer, The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy, 1965, page 305
  14. Troy Times, A Rare Find: Friend of Former Trojan DiscoversOld Newspaper in Trunk In London, January 1921
  15. Weed Parsons & Co., Civil List and Forms of Government of the Colony and State of New York, 1868, page 211
  16. Weed, Parsons & Co., Civil List and Forms of Government of the Colony and State of New York, 1865, page 206
  17. A. J. Weise, History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County, From the Colonization of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to the Present Time, 1880, page 25, page 132
  18. Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Guide to the Congress of the United States, Volume 2, 1971, page 1270
  19. Thomas E. Spencer, Where They're Buried, 1998, page 246