Reverdy Johnson - Senator, US Attorney General

From 1845 to 1849, he represented Maryland in the United States Senate as a Whig, and from March 1849 until July 1850 he was Attorney General of the United States under President Zachary Taylor. He resigned that position when Millard Fillmore took office.
A conservative Democrat, he supported Stephen A. Douglas in the presidential election of 1856. He represented the slave-owning defendant in the infamous 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford. Personally opposed to slavery and was a key figure in the effort to keep Maryland from seceding from the Union during the American Civil War.

He served as a Maryland delegate to the Peace Convention of 1861 and from 1861 to 1862 served in the Maryland House of Delegates. During this time he represented Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter at his court-martial, arguing that Porter's distinguished record of service ought to put him beyond question. The officers on the court-martial, all handpicked by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, voted to convict Porter of cowardice and disobedience.

After the capture of New Orleans, he was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln to revise the decisions of the military commandant, General Benjamin F. Butler, in regard to foreign governments, and reversed all those decisions to the entire satisfaction of the administration. After the war, representing the riven points of view held by his fellow statesmen, Johnson argued for a gentler Reconstruction effort than that advocated by the Radical Republicans.

In 1863 he again took a seat in the United States Senate, serving through 1868. In 1865, he defended Mary Surratt before a military tribunal. Surratt was convicted and executed for plotting and aiding Lincoln's assassination. In 1866, he was a delegate to the National Union Convention which attempted to build support for President Johnson. Senator Johnson's report on the proceedings of the convention was entered into the record of President Johnson's impeachment trial. In 1868 he was appointed minister to the United Kingdom and soon after his arrival in England negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty for the settlement of disputes arising out of the Civil War; this, however, the Senate refused to ratify, and he returned home on the accession of General Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency. Again resuming his legal practice, he was engaged by the government in the prosecution of cases against the Ku Klux Klan as well as work compiling the reports of the decisions of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

In 1876, he fell from a balcony at the Governor's Mansion in Annapolis and was killed instantly. He is buried in Greenmount Cemetery at Baltimore. Prior to his death, Johnson had been the last surviving member of the Taylor Cabinet.

Lineage Reverdy Johnson 1796 was the father of Louise Johnson 1827 who married William Riggin Travers 1819. William R Travers 1819 was father to Louisa Travers aka Maria Louisa Travers 1848 who married James W Wadsworth 1877, James Wolcott Wadsworth 1846, James Samuel Wadsworth 1807, James Wadsworth 1768, John Noyes Wadsworth 1732, James Wadsworth 1677, John Wadsworth 1630, William Wadsworth 1594, William Wadsworth. Hannah Wadsworth 1750 was the 3rd great granddaughter of William Wadsworth 1550. She married John Bigelow 1739

James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr

James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. (August 12, 1877 - June 21, 1952) was a U.S. Republican politician, grandson of General Wadsworth. A member of Skull and Bones, he graduated from Yale in 1898, and immediately entered the live-stock and farming business in which his father was interested both in New York and Texas.[1]He became active early in Republican politics, being elected to the New York State Assembly in 1905 (when 28 years old) and serving continuously until 1910. He was speaker of the Assembly from 1906 to 1910. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1915 until 1927, and as a United States Congressman from 1933 until 1951.

Wadsworth was a firm proponent of individual rights and feared what he considered the threat of federal intervention into the private lives of Americans. He believed that the only purpose of the Constitution was to and limit the powers of government and to protect the rights of citizens. For this reason, he voted against the Eighteenth Amendment when it was before the Senate. Before it went into effect, Wadsworth predicted that prohibition would result in widespread violations and contempt for law and the Constitution.

By the mid-1920s, Wadsworth was one of a handful of congressmen who spoke out forcefully and frequently against Prohibition. He was especially concerned that citizens could be prosecuted by both state and federal officials for a single violation of prohibition law. This seemed to him to constitute double jeopardy, inconsistent with the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution.

Lineage: James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. 1877, James Wolcott Wadsworth 1846, James Samuel Wadsworth 1807, James Wadsworth 1768, John Noyes Wadsworth 1732, James Wadsworth 1677, John Wadsworth 1630, William Wadsworth 1594, William Wadsworth 1550. William Wadsworth 1550 was the 3x great grandfather to Hannah Wadsworth 1750 who married John Bigelow 1739.

James Samuel Wadsworth

Wadsworth was born in Geneseo, New York, to wealthy parents. His father was the owner of one of the largest portfolios of cultivated land in the state and young Wadsworth was groomed to fulfill the responsibilities he would inherit. He attended both Harvard University and Yale University, studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but had no intention of practicing. He spent the majority of his life managing his family's estate. Out of a sense of noblesse oblige, he became a philanthropist and entered politics, first as a Democrat, but then as one of the organizers of the Free Soil Party, which joined the Republican Party in 1856. In 1861, he was a member of the Washington peace conference, an unofficial gathering of Northern and Southern moderates attempted to avert war. But after war became inevitable, he considered it his duty to volunteer.

Despite his complete lack of military experience, at the outbreak of the Civil War Wadsworth was commissioned a major general of the New York state militia. He served as a civilian volunteer aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. McDowell recommended him for command and, on August 9, 1861, James Wadsworth was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers; in October, he received command of a brigade in McDowell's division of the Army of the Potomac.

From March to September 1862, Wadsworth commanded the Military District of Washington. During the preparations for Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Wadsworth complained to President Abraham Lincoln that he had insufficient troops to defend the capital due to McClellan's plan to take a large number of them with him to the Virginia Peninsula. Lincoln countermanded McClellan's plan and restored a full corps to the Washington defenses, generating ill feelings between McClellan and Wadsworth. Seeing no prospects for serving in McClellan's army, Wadsworth allowed his name to be put into nomination for governor of New York against antiwar Democrat Horatio Seymour, but he declined to leave active duty to campaign and lost the election.

After McClellan left the Army of the Potomac, and after the serious Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Wadsworth was appointed commander of the 1st Division, I Corps, replacing Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, who had been promoted to command the V Corps. He was a dashing division commander, trim and vigorous at 56 years old, snow white hair with large white mutton chop sideburns, brandishing an officer's saber from the American Revolutionary War. He was widely admired in his new division because he spent considerable effort looking after the welfare of his men, making sure that their rations and housing were adequate. They were also impressed that he was so devoted to the Union cause that he had given up a comfortable life to serve in the Army without drawing pay.

Wadsworth's division's first test in combat under his command was at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He made a faltering start in maneuvering his men across the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg and they ended up being only lightly engaged during the battle. His performance at the Battle of Gettysburg was much more substantial. Arriving in the vanguard of John F. Reynolds's I Corps on July 1, 1863, Wadsworth's division bore much of the brunt of the overwhelming Confederate attack that morning and afternoon. They were able to hold out against attacks from both the west and north, giving the Army of the Potomac time to bring up sufficient forces to hold the high ground south of town and eventually win the battle. But by the time the division retreated back through town to Cemetery Hill that evening, it had suffered over 50% casualties. Despite these losses, on the second day of battle, Wadsworth sent two regiments to reinforce the defense of Culp's Hill.

I Corps had been so significantly damaged at Gettysburg that, when the Army of the Potomac was reorganized in March 1864, its surviving regiments were dispersed to other corps. After an eight-month leave of absence, Wadsworth was named commander of the 4th Division, V Corps. This speaks well for his performance at Gettysburg because a number of his contemporaries were left without assignments when the army reorganized. At the start of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign, Wadsworth led his division at the Battle of the Wilderness. He was mortally wounded in the head on May 6, 1864, and captured by Confederate forces.

Wadsworth died two days later in a Confederate field hospital. He is buried in the Temple Hill Cemetery in Geneseo, New York. The day before he was wounded, he was promoted to major general of volunteers, but this appointment was withdrawn and he received instead a posthumous brevet promotion to major general as of May 6, 1864, for his service at Gettysburg and the Wilderness.

Lineage James Samuel Wadsworth 1807, James Wadsworth 1768, John Noyes Wadsworth 1732, James Wadsworth 1677, John Wadsworth 1630, William Wadsworth 1594, William Wadsworth. Hannah Wadsworth 1750 was the 3rd great granddaughter of WW 1550. She married John Bigelow 1739.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1842). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, though he lived the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a former headquarters of George Washington.

Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poetry, known for its musicality, which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.

Lineage Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, son of Zilpah Wadsworth 1778, Brig. General Peleg Wadsworth 1748, Peleg Wadsworth 1715, John Wadsworth 1672, John Wadsworth 1638, William Wadsworth 1555. Hannah Wadsworth 1750 married John Bigelow 1739. Hannah Wadsworth was the daughter of Samuel 1716, Jonathan 1687, Joseph 1650, William 1594, William 1555.

Frederick Law Olmstead

Watertown is the smallest city to have a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the celebrated landscape architect who created Central Park in New York City.

Frederick Law Olmsted (April 25, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape designer and father of American landscape architecture, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. Other project include the country's oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York, the country's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York, Mount Royal Park in Montreal, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts, Cherokee Park (and the entire parks and parkway system) in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Jackson Park, Washington Park, Midway Plaisance in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, Detroit's 982 acre Belle Isle park, the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building, Piedmont Park in Atlanta, George Washington Vanderbilt II's Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, and Montebello Park in St. Catharines, Ontario




Lineage: Frederick Law Olmsted 1822, John Olmsted 1791, Benjamin Olmsted 1750, Johnathon Olmsted 1706, Capt. Aaron Olmsted brother of JO 1706 married Mary Langrell Bigelow.

Harlan Fiske Stone - Chief Justice of The US Supreme Court

Harlan Fiske Stone b. 1872 in New Hampshire. Supreme Court Chief Justice. Harlan Fiske Stone was born in New Hampshire on October 11, 1872. He grew up on a farm, and his dislike of farm work led him to attend college. After being expelled from Massachusetts Agricultural College, Stone enrolled at Amherst, where he excelled socially, athletically and academically. After graduating from Amherst in 1894, Stone attended Columbia Law School, graduating in 1898. One sign of his intellect was that Columbia almost immediately hired him as a professor after graduation. Like many other professors of law at that time, Stone both taught and practiced law. In 1910, Stone was named Dean of the Columbia Law School, and served in that capacity until 1923. That latter year, Stone became head of litigation at the white shoe (that is, fancy) New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell. The next year, Stone, a progressive Republican, was named Attorney General by Calvin Coolidge, who had become President after the death of Warren G. Harding. The next year Coolidge nominated Stone to the Supreme Court.

Stone quickly became one of the dissenters on the Court, often joining Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis. During FDR's first presidential term (March 1933-January 1937), Stone usually voted to sustain New Deal legislation (some decisions of the Court unanimously held particular New Deal legislation unconstitutional), and when the Court was split, Stone was often in the minority. When the Court "switched" in 1937, Stone found himself in the majority. In 1938, Stone wrote the Court's opinion in US v. Carolene Products, which concerned the constitutionality of governmental regulation of economic matters. The Court readily upheld congressional action, but in footnote 4, joined by a plurality, Stone suggested a two-tiered standard of review of legislation. Economic legislation was to be reviewed deferentially by the Court. Legislation that affected discrete and insular minorities, or which impaired the democratic process itself, would be subject to a greater scrutiny by the Court. This rational basis/strict scrutiny dichotomy is commonplace in today's individual rights cases, and traces back to Stone's footnote 4. However, in Hirabayashi v. US (1943), the Court, in an opinion by Stone, affirmed the constitutionality of civil liberties restrictions on Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the US during World War II.

Between mid-1937 and early 1941, seven new members of the Court were named by FDR. The only remaining holdovers from the pre-1937 Court were Stone and Owen Roberts. In order to present an olive branch to the Republican Party, FDR decided to promote Stone from Associate Justice to Chief Justice after the retirement of Charles Evans Hughes in 1941, even though Stone was nearly 69 years old. Stone remained Chief Justice until his death on April 22, 1946, which is the shortest term as Chief Justice in over 200 years.

As a Chief Justice, Stone found himself with a fractious Court. Although most of its members had been appointed by FDR, they often found themselves at odds with one another. Felix Frankfurter and Robert Jackson detested Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas detested Frankfurter and found common cause with Black. Frank Murphy's abilities were derided by Frankfurter, and Black and Douglas had little respect for Owen Roberts. Stone did a poor job of managing these strong personalities.

Lineage Harlan Fiske Stone 1872, son of Frederick Lawson Stone 1836, Hannah Fisk 1810 was the mother of FLS 1836.

Ezekiel Albert Straw

Ezekiel Albert Straw (December 30, 1819–October 23, 1882), was an engineer, businessman, and politician from Manchester, New Hampshire. He was born in Salisbury, but moved with his family to Lowell, Massachusetts, where his father, James B. Straw, was employed at the Appleton Manufacturing Company. Ezekiel A. Straw, eldest of 7 children, attended schools in Lowell before enrolling at Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics.

Upon leaving Phillips Andover, Straw was hired in the spring of 1838 as an assistant civil engineer at the Nashua & Lowell Railway, then under construction. On July 4, 1838, he arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire, sent to substitute for a civil engineer at the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company who had become ill. The position soon became permanent. One of his first duties was laying out lots and streets for the new industrial city as envisioned by Amoskeag's cultured treasurer (president), William Amory. He also assisted with the construction of the dam and canal. In 1842, he founded the community's First Unitarian Society. Straw was sent by the mills to England and Scotland in November of 1844 to gather information and machinery for manufacturing and printing muslin delaines, which the Manchester Print Works introduced to the United States. In July of 1851, he was appointed agent (manager) of Amoskeag.

Straw was a Republican state representative from 1859 to 1864 and a state senator from 1864 to 1866. In his second year in the state senate, he served as its president. In 1869, he was appointed to the staff of Governor Onslow Stearns. From 1872-1874, he served two terms as Republican governor of New Hampshire. Straw was treasurer and principal owner of the Namaske Mill from its organization at Manchester in 1856 until it was purchased by Amoskeag in 1875, and director of the Langdon Mills after Amoskeag acquired it in 1874. He was a principal figure in creation of the Manchester waterworks, gas light company and public library. In addition, he served as president of the Blodget Edge Tool Manufacturing Company, New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association and New Hampshire Fire Insurance Company.

On April 6, 1842, he married Charlotte Smith Webster, who bore him 4 children before dying on March 15, 1852. Their son, Herman F. Straw, would become agent of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company from 1885 until 1919. Ezekiel A. Straw was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1860. He died in 1882 at Manchester and is buried in Valley Cemetery.

Lineage Ezekial Albert Straw 1819 was the son of Mehitable Fisk 1800