Alexander Wolcott

Alexander Wolcott (September 15, 1758 – June 26, 1828) was a United States politician, customs inspector, and nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States. Nominated by James Madison in 1811, to replace the late William Cushing, he was rejected by the United States Senate by a vote of 9–24. He was later a delegate to the 1818 convention that drafted the Constitution of Connecticut. Early and family life Wolcott was born in Windsor, Connecticut, on September 15, 1758, to Mary Richards Wolcott. His father, also Alexander Wolcott, was a medical doctor who assisted the Patriot forces during the American Revolutionary War. He had an elder half sister, Lydia Wolcott Austin (1737–1820) as well as two sisters – Esther Wolcott Treat (1749–1841) and Elizabeth Wolcott Wolcott (1763–1817) – and a brother, Guy Wolcott (1763–1823). The younger Alexander Wolcott attended Yale College, where he studied law and graduated in 1778. He went on to practice law in Massachusetts and Connecticut. After marrying Frances Burbank in 1785, he settled in Middletown, Connecticut. They had two sons and two daughters. Their son, Alexander Wolcott Jr. (or III) (1790–1830), also attended Yale, became a surgeon's mate during the War of 1812 and then had a private medical practice in Boston and Vincennes, Indiana before becoming the federal Indian Agent for the Great Lakes region (as well as marry in 1823), but died in Chicago not long after his father's demise in Connecticut. Political role in Connecticut Wolcott served as the Democratic-Republican Party's leader in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1796 to 1801. In 1800, Democratic-Republicans in Connecticut formally organized the Thomas Jefferson presidential campaign. The inaugural meeting took place at the residence of Pierpont Edwards in New Haven, Connecticut, and Wolcott was among the leaders in Connecticut who were supporters of the campaign. After the 1800 presidential election, Wolcott was one of the Connecticut Republicans that the administration consulted on appointments. In July 1801, Jefferson appointed him as collector of customs as Middletown, a position that was worth $3,000 at the time and which he held until his death. Pierpont Edwards had insisted that Wolcott was brought in to replace the previous collector of customs, described as "a violent, irritable, priest-ridden, implacable, ferocious federalist".