Ezekiel Bacon (September 1 1776 - October 18 1870) was an early American statesman. Bacon was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and attended what was then Yale College, graduating in 1794. He studied law in the Litchfield, Connecticut's law school and then began his practice in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In this state he spent the early part of his political career: as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1805-1806, elected as a Democratic-Republican member to the United States House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Barnabas Bidwell and served from 16 September 1807 to 3 March 1813. Later, he would relocate to New York, where he served as Associate Justice of Oneida County's Common Pleas Court in 1818, and was later elected to the state assembly in 1819. He was a son of John Bacon and the father of William Johnson Bacon. He attended the Litchfield Law School and afterwards studied with Nathan Dane in Beverly; was admitted to the bar in 1800 and commenced practice in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means (Twelfth Congress). He was a chief justice of the court of common pleas for the western district of Massachusetts 1811-1814; First Comptroller of the United States Treasury from February 11, 1814, to February 28, 1815, when he resigned; moved to Utica, Oneida County, N.Y., in 1816; appointed associate justice of the court of common pleas in 1818; member of the State assembly in 1819; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1821; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1824 to the Nineteenth Congress; at time of his death he was the oldest surviving Member of Congress and the last representative of the administration of President Madison; died in Utica, N.Y., October 18, 1870; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery.
References
- Barlow, William, and David O. Powell. “Congressman Ezekiel Bacon of Massachusetts and the Coming of the War of 1812.” Historical Journal of Western Massachusetts 6 (Spring 1978): 28-41.
- Ezekiel Bacon at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
