Cadwallader David Colden

Cadwallader David Colden (April 4, 1769 – February 7, 1834) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 55th Mayor of New York City and as a U.S. Representative from New York. A grandson of colonial Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden, he was born into a prominent New York family and came of age during the formative years of the new republic. Details of his earliest youth are sparse, but his family background and subsequent professional path indicate a classical education and legal training consistent with the expectations for men of his social standing in late eighteenth-century New York.

Colden studied law and was admitted to the bar, beginning his legal practice in New York City. In 1793 he moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, where he continued to build his legal career. He returned to New York City in 1796 and quickly assumed positions of public responsibility within the state’s legal system. From 1798 to 1801 he served as Assistant Attorney General for the First District of New York, a jurisdiction that then comprised Suffolk, Queens, Kings, Richmond, and Westchester counties. His reputation as an able lawyer grew, and from 1810 to 1811 he was District Attorney of the First District, which by that time included the same counties together with New York County. During his years in practice he argued for the defendant in the seminal property law case Pierson v. Post, a decision that became a foundational teaching case in American jurisprudence on the acquisition of property rights.

Beyond his formal legal duties, Colden was active in civic and fraternal life. He was a committed Freemason and served as Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of New York from 1801 to 1805 and again from 1810 to 1819, reflecting his prominence within the organization. During the War of 1812 he became a colonel of volunteers, contributing to the defense efforts of the young nation. Although he had been a slaveholder, in 1815 he assumed the presidency of the New York Manumission Society, founded in 1785 to promote the abolition of slavery in the state. In that role he oversaw the rebuilding of the Society’s African Free School in New York City and worked alongside figures such as Peter A. Jay, William Jay, and Governor Daniel D. Tompkins. Later historians credited the energetic efforts of Colden and his associates with influencing the New York legislature’s decision to set July 4, 1827, as the date for the final abolition of slavery in the state.

Colden’s political career developed in tandem with his legal and reform activities. As a member of the Federalist Party representing New York, he contributed to the legislative process during one term in the United States Congress. Before entering national office, he served in the New York State Assembly in 1818, participating in state-level lawmaking at a time of rapid growth and political realignment. That same year he was appointed the 55th Mayor of New York City by Governor DeWitt Clinton, holding the mayoralty from 1818 to 1821. His tenure as mayor coincided with a period of expanding commerce and urban development in New York, and he played a role in administering the city as it emerged as a leading American port.

Colden advanced to national office when he successfully contested the election of Peter Sharpe to the Seventeenth United States Congress. He took his seat as a U.S. Representative from New York on December 12, 1821, and served until March 3, 1823. Serving as a Federalist during a significant period in American history, he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his constituents in the House of Representatives at a time when the Federalist Party was in decline and new political alignments were forming. After his term in Congress, he returned to state politics and was elected to the New York State Senate from the First District, serving from 1825 until his resignation in 1827.

Following his resignation from the State Senate, Colden moved across the Hudson River to Jersey City, New Jersey. There he devoted much of his time to the completion of the Morris Canal, a major internal improvement project intended to link the coal fields of Pennsylvania with markets in New Jersey and New York Harbor. His work on the canal reflected his broader interest in infrastructure and economic development, which had been a recurring theme in his public life.

Colden’s family life connected him to other prominent New York and national figures. Among his children was David Cadwallader Colden (1797–1850), who married Francis Wilkes (1796–1877), the daughter of banker Charles Wilkes and a cousin of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes of the United States Navy. These family ties reinforced the Colden family’s position within the social and commercial elite of the region. Cadwallader David Colden died on February 7, 1834, leaving a legacy as a lawyer, municipal leader, state legislator, congressman, and reformer engaged with many of the central legal and political issues of his era.