Edward Tiffin

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox officeholder Edward Tiffin (June 19, 1766 – August 9, 1829) was an American politician who served as the first governor of Ohio and later as a United States senator from Ohio as a member of the Democratic-Republican party.

Biography

Sources indicate that he was born in Carlisle;<ref name="Edward Tiffin">Template:Cite web</ref> however he may have been born in or near Workington<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> — also in the then county of Cumberland, England. Tiffin attended the Latin school in Carlisle, and became an apprentice to a student of medicine in 1778. Six years later he completed his apprenticeship.<ref name="Edward Tiffin"/> His family emigrated to Virginia in 1783,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and he began practicing medicine at the age of seventeen.<ref name="Edward Tiffin"/>

In 1789, he married Mary Worthington of Berkeley County, sister of future Governor of Ohio Thomas Worthington. She died, childless, in 1808. A year after their marriage, the Tiffins joined the Methodist church after hearing the preaching of Thomas Scott, who would be their neighbor and friend for many years.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 4.</ref> Bishop Asbury ordained Tiffin a deacon of the Methodist church November 19, 1792, authorizing him to preach.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 5.</ref> Tiffin and Worthington inherited sixteen slaves when Worthington's father died. They each decided to manumit their slaves and move to the Northwest Territory, where slavery was outlawed.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 6.</ref> Tiffin headed westward, along with Thomas Worthington, in 1798, settling in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Northwest Territory

Tiffin became the first doctor in Chillicothe, traveling on horseback, day and night, to treat the afflicted.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 11.</ref> He arrived with a letter addressed to the governor of the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair from George Washington, recommending him for public office. Tiffin served as the Speaker of the Territorial House of Representatives from 1799 to 1801 and as president of the 1802 Constitutional Convention,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> where he cast a tie-breaking vote to deny the voting franchise to the new state's 337 African American residents.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was a leader of the Chillicothe Junto, a group of Chillicothe Democratic-Republican politicians who brought about the admission of Ohio as a state in 1803 and largely controlled its politics for some years thereafter. Among his colleagues in the faction were Thomas Worthington and Nathaniel Massie.

Tiffin was the obvious choice for the governorship when Ohio was admitted to the Union. He was elected almost without opposition to a first term and re-elected by similarly overwhelming numbers two years later. Tiffin acted promptly to stop the Burr conspiracy in his second term.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 99–102.</ref>

Tiffin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1806 and resigned the governorship in March 1807 to take his seat. He served only two years, however, resigning after the death of his wife. "He was ever faithful to the interests of the West and diligent in seeking the welfare of its inhabitants. He procured an appropriation of public money for the improvement of the Ohio River. He secured better and speedier transportation of the mails; a better and more rapid system for the surveys of western lands; and urged such modifications of the laws regarding sales of western land as would, to use his own words, 'guard the purchasers of them from unnecessary embarrassments and frequent ruin.' "<ref>Gilmore 1897: 108.</ref> He also voted for the expulsion of the other Ohio Senator, John Smith, who had been implicated in the Burr conspiracy.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 116.</ref> He spent only a few months at home, however, before being elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served as speaker from 1809 to 1811. Tiffin remarried April 16, 1809, to Mary Porter, originally from Delaware, and then of Ross County.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 119.</ref> Tiffin became the first commissioner of the United States General Land Office, which managed allocations of Federal lands.

He quickly helped remove the Federal records from Washington before it was sacked during the War of 1812.<ref>Gilmore 1897: 127–128.</ref> In 1814, he became the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, exchanging positions with Josiah Meigs so that he might spend more time near his home in Chillicothe. Tiffin served in the post until his death.

Death

Tiffin was buried in Grandview Cemetery, Ross County, Ohio. His death was reported in the newspapers, such as this notice in the Brattleboro Messenger (Brattleboro, VT), Sep. 18, 1829, p. 3: At Chillicothe, Doct. Edward Tiffin, formerly Governor of Ohio, and late Surveyor General of the United States, aged 64 years.

Legacy

The city of Tiffin in northwestern Ohio was named in honor of Tiffin in 1822.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

• List of United States governors born outside the United States
• List of United States senators born outside the United States

References

• Template:Cite book
• Russian version: Edward Tiffin

External links

• Template:Cite web

• Template:Ohio History Central
• Template:Cite Appletons'
• Template:Find a Grave