Joseph Ferdinand Wingate

Joseph Ferdinand Wingate (June 29, 1786 – unknown), son of Joshua and Hannah Carr Wingate, was a U.S. Representative from Maine and a prominent early nineteenth-century merchant and public official in New England. He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he received a limited formal schooling, a common circumstance in the period that nonetheless did not prevent his later rise in business and politics. He belonged to a politically connected New England family; his uncle, Paine Wingate, served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from New Hampshire and as a Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, providing Joseph Wingate with a familial example of public service and federal officeholding.

As a young man, Wingate moved to the District of Maine, then still part of Massachusetts, and established himself in Bath, an important coastal and shipbuilding town. There he engaged in the mercantile business, participating in the commercial and maritime trade that underpinned the local and regional economy. He continued in mercantile pursuits in Bath until 1820. In 1808 he married Margaret Gay Tingey, the daughter of Commodore Thomas Tingey of the United States Navy, thereby linking himself by marriage to a distinguished naval family. This connection further situated Wingate within the broader network of federal and maritime elites of the early republic.

Wingate’s growing prominence in Bath led to his entry into public life. He served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1818 and 1819, at a time when Maine was still governed as a district of Massachusetts. His service in the state legislature coincided with the debates and political developments that would culminate in Maine’s separation from Massachusetts and admission to the Union as a separate state in 1820. Following Maine’s statehood, Wingate was appointed collector of customs at the port of Bath, a key federal revenue position in a major shipping center. He held this post from 1820 to 1824, overseeing the administration of customs laws and the collection of duties on maritime commerce.

Building on his legislative and administrative experience, Wingate advanced to national office. He was elected as a Representative to the Twentieth and Twenty-first Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1827, to March 3, 1831. During his tenure in Congress, he represented Maine in the period following its recent admission to the Union, when the state was still defining its political identity and role within the federal system. His service placed him among the early cohort of Maine’s national legislators, contributing to the state’s voice in federal policymaking in the late 1820s and early 1830s.

After leaving Congress, Wingate did not again hold national office. He eventually moved from Bath to Windsor, Maine, reflecting a later-life relocation within the state. His family continued to maintain connections with other notable New England figures; his daughter, Sydney Ellen Wingate, married George P. Sewall, further extending the family’s ties into regional political and professional circles. The exact date and circumstances of Joseph Ferdinand Wingate’s death are not known, but his career as a merchant, state legislator, customs official, and member of Congress situates him within the generation that bridged the era of the early republic and the emerging political order of the Jacksonian period.