Author: Meigs, Return Jonathan
Biography:
MEIGS, Return Jonathan (1764-1825: WBIS)
Meigs's career is closely associated with westward expansion in the US. His mother was Joanna (Winborn) Meigs; his father Return Jonathan Meigs (1740-1823) belonged to the Ohio Company of Associates which promoted settlement in the Northwest Territory. Meigs Jr., born in Middletown CT, graduated from Yale in 1785, became a lawyer in Middletown, and in 1788 married Sophia Wright, with whom he had one child. Shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Marietta, a newly established town on the Ohio River. Meigs was made postmaster of Marietta in 1794, a territorial judge in 1795, and a member of the territorial legislature in 1798, but he later changed his allegiance to the pro-statehood party and in 1803 became the first chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Subsequent political alliances took him briefly to Louisiana and Michigan but in 1810 he was elected Governor of Ohio--a title he resigned to become Postmaster General of the US from 1814 to 1823. He then retired to Marietta, where he died. His college poem is his only known literary composition. (ANBO 9 Apr. 2020) HJ
Other Names:
- R. J. Meigs