Biography
Representative from Kentucky; born in Charlotte County, Va., in 1797; attended the common schools; moved with his parents to Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Ky.; attended Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky.; served in the War of 1812; captain in the Twelfth Virginia Infantry March 12, 1812; major in the Eighteenth Infantry September 20, 1813; honorably discharged June 15, 1815; member of the State house of representatives in 1819 and 1820; elected as a Jackson Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and reelected as a Jacksonian candidate to the Nineteenth, and Twentieth Congresses (March 4, 1823-March 3, 1829); chairman, Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business (Nineteenth Congress); appointed by President Jackson as Minister Plenipotentiary to New Grenada March 13, 1829, and served until April 16, 1833; returned to Kentucky; presented credentials as a Member-elect to the Twenty-third Congress, but the election was contested by Robert P. Letcher and the House declared a new election necessary; appointed lieutenant colonel of the Third United States Dragoons in the war with Mexico and served from March 3, 1847, to July 31, 1848; delegate to the Kentucky constitutional convention in 1849 and 1850; died in Harrodsburg, Ky., July 21, 1853.
Courtesy of Biographical Directory of the United States Congress