Nathaniel Niles

Nathaniel Niles (April 3, 1741October 31, 1828) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a United States representative from Vermont. He also wrote a famous poem about the Battle of Bunker Hill. Early life Niles was born in South Kingstown in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He attended Harvard College and graduated from Princeton College in 1766. He studied law and medicine, and taught in New York City. Niles also studied theology and preached in Norwich and Torrington, Connecticut. Niles invented a process for making wire, and erected mills in Norwich. Career After the Revolution, Niles moved to West Fairlee in the Vermont Republic, and was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1784 and served as Speaker. From 1784 to 1788, he was a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court and a member of the council in 1785 and 1787. He was a delegate to the Vermont state constitutional convention of 1791, and upon the admission of Vermont as a State into the Union was elected to the Second Congress as an Anti-Administration Party candidate. Niles was reelected to the Third Congress and served from October 17, 1791, to March 3, 1795. He was one of seven representatives to vote against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.