Rufus KING, Congress, NY (1755-1827)

KING Rufus , a Delegate from Massachusetts and a Senator from New York; born in Scarboro, Maine (then a district of Massachusetts), March 24, 1755; attended Dummer Academy, Byfield, Mass., and graduated from Harvard College in 1777; served in the Revolutionary War; studied law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Newburyport in 1780; delegate to the Massachusetts General Court 1783-1785; Member of the Continental Congress from Massachusetts 1784-1787; delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and one of the signers of the Constitution; delegate to the State convention in 1788 which ratified the Constitution; moved to New York City in 1788; member, New York assembly; elected to the United States Senate in 1789; reelected in 1795 and served from July 16, 1789, until May 1796, when he resigned to become United States Minister to Great Britain; Minister to Great Britain 1796-1803; unsuccessful Federalist candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1804; again elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate in 1813; reelected in 1819 and served from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1825; chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Sixteenth Congress), Committee on Foreign Relations (Seventeenth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for Governor of New York in 1816 and for President of the United States in 1816; again United States Minister to Great Britain 1825-1826; died in Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y., April 29, 1827; interment in the churchyard of Grace Church.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Ernst, Robert. Rufus King: American Federalist. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968; King, Charles, ed. The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King. 6 vols. 1894-1900. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1971.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present