Samuel D. Ingham

For the Connecticut politician, see Samuel Ingham.
Samuel Delucenna Ingham
9th United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office
March 6, 1829  June 20, 1831
President Andrew Jackson
Preceded by Richard Rush
Succeeded by Louis McLane
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 8th district
In office
March 4, 1823  March 3, 1829
Preceded by Seat added
Succeeded by Peter Ihrie, Jr.
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 6th district
In office
March 4, 1813  July 6, 1818
Preceded by William Crawford
Succeeded by Vacant
In office
October 7, 1822  March 3, 1823
Preceded by Samuel Moore
Succeeded by Robert Harris
Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
In office
1806–1808
Personal details
Born (1779-09-16)September 16, 1779
New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA
Died June 5, 1860(1860-06-05) (aged 80)
Trenton, New Jersey, USA
Political party Democratic-Republican, Democrat
Spouse(s) Rebecca Dodd Ingham
Deborah Hall Ingham
Profession Politician, lawyer

Samuel Delucenna Ingham (September 16, 1779 – June 5, 1860) was a U.S. Congressman and U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Andrew Jackson.

Early life and education

Ingham was born at near New Hope, Pennsylvania. His parents were Dr. Jonathan Ingham, "a famous physician from Philadelphia",[1] and his wife, the former Ann Welding. After a pursuit of classical studies, he was an apprentice to a paper maker along Pennypack Creek not far from Philadelphia.[2]

Manufacturer

After completing his apprenticeship, Ingham became the manager of a paper mill at Bloomfield, New Jersey. It was while here he met Rebecca Dodd, whom he married in 1800. They would have five children.[3]

Also in 1800 Ingham returned to Pennsylvania and established a paper mill on his mother's farm (his father having died in 1793) that would be his main source of employment in the coming years.

Political career

Bureau of Engraving and Printing portrait of Ingham as Secretary of the Treasury.

He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1806 to 1808. After his service in the legislature Ingham was appointed Justice of the Peace by the Governor of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1813 until July 6, 1818. He easily trounced his Federalist opponents in the first two elections and had no opposition at all in 1816. He resigned from Congress in 1818 due to his wife's ill health. He was appointed the Prothonotary (Chief Clerk, Notary and Registrar of the Court) of the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County, Pennsylvania after leaving Congress.[4] In 1819 Rebecca Dodd Ingham died.

Ingham served as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1819 to 1820.

In 1822 Ingham married Deborah Hall of Salem, New Jersey. They would become the parents of three children.[5]

Also in 1822 Ingham was elected to Congress where he would serve until 1829.

During the 13th Congress he was chair of the United States House Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary War Claims. During the 14th, 15th, 19th and 20th Congresses, he was chair of the House Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, and was also chair of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department during the 15th Congress.

Ingham served as the ninth Secretary of the U.S. Treasury from March 6, 1829, to June 21, 1831.

Societies

During the 1820s, Ingham was a member of the prestigious Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, which counted among its members two eventual presidents, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, and many other prominent men of the day, including well-known representatives of the military, government service, medical, and other professions.[6]

Controversies while Secretary of the Treasury

The Second Bank of the United States, viewed by Jackson and much of the nation as an unconstitutional and dangerous monopoly, was Ingham's primary concern as Secretary of the Treasury—Jackson not only mistrusted the Second Bank of the United States, but all banks.

Jackson thought that there should be no paper currency in circulation, but only coins; and that the U.S. Constitution was designed to expel paper currency as part of the monetary system. Ingham believed in the Second Bank, and labored to resolve conflicts between Jackson, who wanted it destroyed, and the Bank's president, Nicholas Biddle.

Ingham was unable to reach any resolution between Jackson and Biddle, but he left office over an incident unrelated to the Bank, stemming from his involvement in the social ostracism of Peggy Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War John H. Eaton by a group of Cabinet members and their wives led by Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, in what became known as the Petticoat affair.

Later life

After resigning as Secretary of the Treasury in protest during the Petticoat affair, effective June 21st, 1821, Ingham resumed the manufacture of paper, and also engaged in the development of anthracite coal fields. He was involved with the organization of the Beaver Meadow Railroad Company[lower-alpha 1] (e. 1830[8]), of which he was then made president for a time.[9] He was also connected with the organization of the Hazleton Coal Company. He also worked to promote canals such at the Lehigh Navigation and the Delaware Canal. He moved to Trenton, New Jersey, in 1849, where he worked with that city's Mechanics Bank.[10]

Ingham died in Trenton, New Jersey, and is interred in the Solebury Presbyterian Churchyard, Solebury, Pennsylvania. Ingham County, Michigan, one of several Cabinet counties named for members of Jackson's administration, is named in Ingham's honor.

Notes

  1. The most common name, Beaver Meadow Railroad was in fact, formally incorporated as the Beaver Meadow Railroad and Coal Company.[7]

References

  1. "Indian Place Names in Bucks County" (PDF). Lenape Nation - A Tribal Community. Retrieved 2012-09-27.
  2. Ford Stevens Ceasar, The Bicentennial History of Ingham County, Michigan (Ann Arbor: Shaw-Barton, 1976), p. 1
  3. Ceasar, History of Ingham County, p. 1
  4. Ceasar, History of Ingham County, p. 2
  5. Caesar, History of Ingham County, p. 3
  6. Rathbun, Richard. The Columbian institute for the promotion of arts and sciences: A Washington Society of 1816-1838. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, October 18, 1917. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
  7. The Hopkin Thomas Project (reprinted web excerpts) (1873). "GUIDE-BOOK OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD,". a history of the company from its first organization and interesting facts concerning the origin and growth of the coal and iron trade in the Lehigh and Wyoming Region., J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
  8. John S. Koehler, Historian, Weatherly, Pa. (February 17, 1984). "Beaver Meadow Railroad Blazed Trails for Coal". The Hopkin Thomas Project, Timelines Industrial America (Railroad Portraits, Beaver Meadow Railroad). Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  9. Scott W. Fausti. "Samuel Delucenna Ingham". The Hopkin Thomas Project (Genealogy Portraits, Rev July 2010). Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  10. Ceasar, History of Ingham County, p. 4

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Samuel D. Ingham.
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
William Crawford
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district

1813–1818
1813–1815 alongside Robert Brown
1815–1818 alongside Thomas J. Rogers
Succeeded by
Thomas J. Rogers
Samuel Moore
Preceded by
Thomas J. Rogers
Samuel Moore
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district

1822–1823
alongside Thomas J. Rogers
Succeeded by
Robert Harris
Preceded by
John Tod
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district

1823–1829
1823–1824 alongside Thomas J. Rogers
1824–1829 alongside: George Wolf
Succeeded by
Samuel A. Smith
Peter Ihrie, Jr.
Political offices
Preceded by
Richard Rush
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Served under: Andrew Jackson

March 6, 1829 – June 20, 1831
Succeeded by
Louis McLane
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