David Barker

David Barker Jr. (1797–1834) was a United States Representative from New Hampshire in the early nineteenth century. Born in 1797, he came of age in the formative years of the American republic, when New England was undergoing significant political, economic, and social change in the decades following the Revolutionary War. His early life unfolded against the backdrop of a maturing federal union and the rise of distinct party systems, developments that would shape the political environment in which he later served.

Details of Barker’s formal education are sparse in surviving records, but like many New Englanders of his generation who entered public life, he would likely have benefited from the region’s strong traditions of common schooling and civic literacy. The early nineteenth century in New Hampshire saw the expansion of academies and local institutions that prepared young men for careers in law, commerce, and public service. Within this milieu, Barker developed the interests and skills that would lead him into politics and eventually to national office.

Barker’s career prior to his service in Congress was rooted in the political and civic structures of New Hampshire. At a time when state and local offices were the primary training ground for national legislators, he would have been engaged with the concerns of his community and state, including questions of internal improvements, commercial development, and the evolving relationship between state and federal authority. His emergence as a figure of sufficient prominence to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives reflected both his personal standing and the confidence placed in him by New Hampshire voters.

As a U.S. Representative from New Hampshire, David Barker Jr. served in the House of Representatives during a period marked by intense debates over economic policy, territorial expansion, and the balance of power between free and slave states. Although the specific details of his committee assignments and legislative initiatives are not extensively documented in the surviving summary, his tenure placed him at the center of national deliberations in the Jacksonian era, when issues such as the national bank, tariffs, and federal infrastructure projects were vigorously contested. His service contributed to the representation of New Hampshire’s interests in these broader national questions.

Barker’s congressional career was cut short by his early death in 1834, at approximately thirty-seven years of age. His passing ended a public life that had intersected with a transformative period in American political history. Though his time on the national stage was brief, David Barker Jr. remains recorded in the historical and congressional record as a U.S. Representative from New Hampshire, part of the generation that helped shape the United States in the decades between the founding era and the Civil War.