Oliver Wolcott: Pride of Connecticut
Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797) of Connecticut was a veteran of the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War militia commander, Continental Congress delegate, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Indian commissioner and governor.
Oliver Wolcott: Pride of Connecticut
Oliver Wolcott (1726-1797) of Connecticut was a veteran of the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War militia commander, Continental Congress delegate, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Indian commissioner and governor.
The Wolcotts were among the founding families of New England, when Henry Wolcott arrived in Massachusetts with his family in 1630. Oliver Wolcott, Henry’s great-grandson, graduated from Yale in 1747 and was commissioned as a captain during the French and Indian War, where Wolcott and his company guarded the Northern frontiers. After the war, he returned to Connecticut to study medicine but never went into private practice and instead was appointed sheriff and then judge in Litchfield County. In 1771, he rejoined the militia as a major and then colonel, and in 1774, Wolcott was appointed an assistant in the council of state. That same year, he was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs to broker a treaty in New York.
Wolcott was elected to Continental Congress in 1775, where he was a vehement supporter of the Patriot cause. On July 14, 1776, Patriots in New York City tore down an equestrian statue of King George III in the town square and brought it to Wolcott’s house. The statue would be melted down into 42,000 bullets. He didn’t attend Congress often because of his duties in the militia but did sign the Declaration of Independence in September 1776. In the meantime, Wolcott returned north to command 14 Connecticut regiments to protect New York. He returned to Congress in winter 1777 and returned to the filed that summer to reinforce Gen. Israel Putnam’s force on the Hudson River. In fall, Wolcott joined Gen. Horatio Gates’ force and fought in the decisive Patriot victory at Saratoga that October.
After the battle, Wolcott returned to Congress — then exiled in York, Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia fell to the British — and remained there until July 1778. He served multiple roles in Congress, in the field and as an Indian commissioner for the remainder of the war. After the war, in 1786 Wolcott was elected lieutenant governor and assumed the governorship in 1796 when the governor died. He won the gubernatorial election but died in office a year later.
"Mr. Wolcott never pursued any of the learned professions, yet his reading was various and extensive," wrote 19th century historian the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich. "He cultivated an acquaintance with the sciences, through the works of some of the most learned men of Europe, and was intimately acquainted with history, both ancient and modern. He has the reputation, and it is believed justly, of having been an accomplished scholar. Mr. Wolcott was also distinguished for his love of order and religion. In his last sickness he expressed, according to Dr. Backus, who preached his funeral sermon, a deep sense of his personal unworthiness and guilt. ... The memory of his personal worth, of his patriotism, his integrity, his Christian walk and conversation, will go down to generations yet unborn."
His son, Oliver Wolcott Jr., would serve as Treasury secretary under the Washington and Adams administrations and also as governor of Connecticut.
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