Benjamin Pickman, Jr.

Benjamin Pickman Jr. (September 30, 1763 – August 16, 1843) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Biography Pickman was born in Salem in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a descendant of Benjamin Pickman, an Englishman from Bristol. Pickman graduated from Harvard University in 1784 after having attended Dummer Academy (now known as The Governor's Academy). The descendant of a Salem merchant family dynasty related to other prominent Salem families such as the Derbys, the Pickerings and the Crowninshields, Pickman studied law in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar, but soon relinquished the practice of law to engage in commercial pursuits, becoming one of the most active merchants of his day in Salem. Pickman's father Col. Benjamin Pickman, Sr., one of the most important merchants in Salem, had been a Loyalist, his estates confiscated by the Colonial government and was forced to flee America for England, only returning to Salem in 1785 after the end of the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Pickman Jr., served the new nation in several capacities. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1797–1802, 1812, and 1813. Benjamin Pickman Jr. also served in the Massachusetts Senate in 1803, as well as a member of the executive council of the State in 1805, 1808, 1813, 1814, and 1819–1821.