Elisha I. Winter

Elisha I. Winter (July 15, 1781 – June 30, 1849) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a member of the Federalist Party who served one term in Congress during a formative period in the early republic. He was born in New York City on July 15, 1781, at a time when the city was emerging as a major commercial and political center in the newly independent United States.

In 1806, Winter moved from New York City to the portion of the town of Peru in Clinton County, New York, a region that was later included in the township of Au Sable. In this northern New York community, he became involved in the development of local natural resources, most notably through the mining of iron ore from a deposit that came to be known as the Winter Ore Bed. His activities in iron mining reflected the broader expansion of early American industry and resource extraction in the first decades of the nineteenth century.

Winter entered national politics as a member of the Federalist Party, representing New York in the United States House of Representatives. He was elected as a Federalist to the Thirteenth Congress and served from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1815. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, encompassing part of the War of 1812 and the political debates that accompanied it. As a Federalist representative, Winter participated in the legislative process and the democratic governance of the young nation, representing the interests of his New York constituents in a Congress marked by partisan divisions over war, commerce, and federal power. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1814 to the Fourteenth Congress, which ended his brief but notable tenure in national office.

After his congressional service, Winter left New York and relocated to Kentucky, moving to a farm near Lexington. There he became a planter and engaged in a range of business ventures that reflected the growing commercial and transportation development of the region. He owned and operated a general store, contributing to the local economy and the commercial life of the Lexington area. As part of the slave-based agricultural and economic system of Kentucky at the time, Winter was a slave owner; according to the 1820 United States census, he owned one enslaved person, a woman between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five.

In addition to his agricultural and mercantile pursuits, Winter played a role in the early history of American rail transportation. He was instrumental in building the first railroad in the Lexington locality and subsequently became president of the Lexington and Ohio Railroad. This enterprise was among the earliest railroad projects in the United States and reflected the transition from traditional overland transport to the new technology of rail, which would profoundly reshape commerce and communication in the nineteenth century.

Elisha I. Winter died in Lexington, Kentucky, on June 30, 1849. He was interred in Lexington Cemetery, a prominent burial ground in the city. His life spanned the period from the post-Revolutionary era through the early industrial and transportation revolutions in the United States, encompassing service in Congress, participation in early American industry, and involvement in the expansion of railroads in the antebellum South and border states.