Barnabas Bidwell

Barnabas Bidwell (August 23, 1763 – July 27, 1833) was an author, teacher and politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, active in Massachusetts and Upper Canada (now Ontario). Educated at Yale, he practised law in western Massachusetts and served as treasurer of Berkshire County. He served in the state legislature as representative and senator, as well as in the United States Congress as spokesman for the administration of Thomas Jefferson. He was effective in defending the administration's positions and passing important legislation, and was the Massachusetts Attorney General from 1807 to 1810, when exaggerated press accounts of irregularities in the Berkshire County books halted his political career and prompted his flight to Upper Canada. Bidwell later paid the $63.18, plus fines, which he attributed to a Berkshire County clerk while he was away on duties in Boston. Nonetheless, the controversy, exaggerated in the press by his Federalist Party enemies, effectively scuppered his potential appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Upper Canada, he won a seat in the provincial assembly but his political opponents managed to expel him on charges of having his American citizenship, being a fugitive and having immoral character. Early life Bidwell was son of American Revolutionary War Patriot Adonijah Bidwell, Yale 1740, and Jemima Devotion in Township No. 1 (now Monterey, Massachusetts), and he graduated from Yale College in 1785. Through his mother, he was descended from John Haynes, 5th Governor of Massachusetts and 1st Governor of Connecticut, and George Wyllys, 4th Governor of Connecticut. He later attended the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (now known as Brown University) in Providence, Rhode Island. He studied law under judge Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Sedgwick, a prominent member of the House of Representatives and later a senator, was an important spokesman for the Federalist Party. He was admitted to the Massachusetts state bar in 1805 and commenced practice in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Barnabas was married to Mary Gray Bidwell and lived a very happy life with his wife. While he was traveling the couple kept in touch and sent each-other very meaningful and extensive letters. Mary died around the age of 43 due to an illness.