James Linn

James Linn (1749 – January 5, 1821) was an American lawyer, politician, and Revolutionary War veteran who served as a United States Representative from New Jersey for one term from 1799 to 1801. A member of the Republican (Democratic-Republican) Party, he participated in the early national legislative process during a formative period in American history, representing the interests of New Jersey constituents in the Sixth Congress.

Linn was born in 1749 in Bedminster Township in the Province of New Jersey, in an area that is now part of Far Hills. He was the son of Margaret (née Kirkpatrick) and Judge Alexander Linn, an Irish immigrant who became a prominent judge in Somerset County, New Jersey. His family was well established in the region; an uncle, Joseph Linn, was a notable landowner and served as a paymaster during the American Revolution. Linn pursued preparatory studies locally and then attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), from which he graduated in 1769. Following his graduation, he remained at the college for a year as its librarian, an early indication of his scholarly and professional inclinations.

After his year as college librarian, Linn studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1772. He commenced the practice of law in Trenton, New Jersey, but maintained close ties to Somerset County. Upon the death of his father in 1776, he inherited the family’s 664-acre estate in the Mine Brook Valley, which included twenty enslaved persons, reflecting both the scale of his family’s landholdings and the presence of slavery in New Jersey during that period. Linn also entered public service in the legal sphere, serving as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Somerset County. In 1776 he was a member of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, participating in the colony’s transition toward statehood and independence.

Linn’s public career was closely intertwined with his military service during the American Revolutionary War. In 1776 he served as a captain in the Somerset County Militia and later that same year became first major, a position he held from 1776 to 1781 under the command of William Alexander, Lord Stirling, a prominent Continental Army officer. His dual role as a militia officer and civil official placed him among the local leaders who supported the revolutionary cause both in the field and in the institutions of emerging state government.

During and after the Revolution, Linn held a series of important positions in New Jersey’s state government. He was a member of the New Jersey Legislative Council (now the New Jersey Senate) in 1777. After returning to Trenton, he served in the New Jersey General Assembly in 1790 and 1791. From 1793 to 1797 he again sat in the State Council, and from October 24, 1796, to October 23, 1797, he served as Vice-President of the Council. He also sought federal office relatively early in the new republic, running unsuccessfully for a seat in the Second Congress in 1791, an effort that foreshadowed his later national service.

Linn was elected as a Republican to the Sixth Congress and served as a United States Representative from New Jersey from March 4, 1799, to March 3, 1801. His term in Congress coincided with a contentious era in national politics marked by debates over federal power, foreign policy, and the legacy of the Federalist and Jeffersonian visions for the republic. As a member of the Republican Party representing New Jersey, Linn contributed to the legislative process during his single term in office, participating in the democratic governance of the young nation and representing the concerns of his state’s citizens. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1800 to the Seventh Congress.

Following his service in Congress, Linn continued to hold significant federal and state offices. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him supervisor of the revenue, a federal post in which he served from 1801 to 1809, overseeing aspects of the national government’s fiscal administration in his region. From 1809 to 1820 he served as the Democratic-Republican Secretary of State of New Jersey. In that capacity he played a central role in the conduct of state affairs and party organization; contemporaries noted that his long tenure in this office “strengthened his control of the party in the state,” underscoring his influence within New Jersey’s Democratic-Republican ranks.

Linn’s personal life connected him to some of the most prominent families in New Jersey. On May 27, 1771, he married Mary Livingston (born 1749), the daughter of Susannah (née French) Livingston and William Livingston, who would become the first Governor of New Jersey and a leading figure in the state’s revolutionary and early statehood politics. After the death of his first wife, Linn remarried Penelope Alexander. Through these family ties and his own inheritance, he stood at the intersection of legal, political, and landed elites in New Jersey.

Linn died in Trenton, New Jersey, on January 5, 1821. He was survived by his widow and a married daughter and was buried in the Lamington Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Somerset County, New Jersey. His only surviving daughter, Evelina Belmont Linn (1803–1886), married the Reverend Dr. Daniel Veech McLean (1801–1869), a Presbyterian minister who became the fifth president of Lafayette College. Through Evelina, Linn was the grandfather of Evelina Linn McLean, who died young in 1840, and of James Linn McLean (1834–1914), a Princeton graduate and lawyer. James Linn McLean married Amanda Mixsell and, after her death, Josephine S. Dunbar (born 1844), and in 1871 he served a term in the West Virginia State Legislature. The family homestead associated with Alexander and James Linn in Somerset County remained a tangible reminder of the family’s longstanding presence and influence in New Jersey.