Jonathan Dayton

(16 October 1760 - 9 October 1824)

Dayton was born the son of a future revolutionary war general and wealthy New Jersey merchant, and educated as a member of the colonial elite (Elizabethtown Academy and College of New Jersey). At sixteen, he enlisted, serving much of the war under his father. He rose to the rank of captain, and served in the Mohawk Valley, in the battles (1777-1778) at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth, in 1779 on Sullivan’s Raid against the Iroquois, and in 1781 at Yorktown.

After the war he married (the daughter of another revolutionary war general), read for the law, and went into the mercantile business with his father. When his father declined membership in New Jersey’s delegation to the Philadelphia Convention, he took his place, and went as the youngest delegate (only 26 when he arrived) to the convention. He was a supporter of the “small state” position – equal representation of states in the national legislature – and opposed the inclusion of slaves in the basis of proportional representation if population were to be used to determine the number of representatives a state would have.

Dayton failed election to the new Congress in 1789 but was subsequently elected and served from 1791 to 1799; he then served in the Senate until 1805. He was moderate Federalist, and became speaker of the House despite the Republican majority in that body. His political reputation was damaged in 1800 by charges of corrupt dealing in land and security (wartime certificates) speculations.