Lemuel Whitman

Lemuel Whitman (June 8, 1780 – November 13, 1841) was a United States Representative from Connecticut, jurist, and state legislator whose career spanned the early decades of the nineteenth century. He was born in Farmington, Hartford County, Connecticut, where he completed his preparatory studies before entering college. Raised in a community that was an important center of political and religious life in central Connecticut, Whitman’s early education prepared him for advanced study and a professional career in law and public service.

Whitman graduated from Yale College in 1800, joining the ranks of a relatively small but influential group of New England-educated professionals who would shape the legal and political institutions of the new republic. In 1801 he accepted a teaching position in a seminary in Bermuda, an experience that briefly took him outside the United States and reflected the demand for well-educated American instructors in British colonial schools. After his return from Bermuda, he pursued legal studies and enrolled at the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, the nation’s first formal law school and a leading training ground for lawyers, judges, and statesmen of the era. Upon his graduation from Litchfield, he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in his native Farmington.

Whitman’s legal abilities led to early judicial responsibilities. In 1818 he was appointed a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court, then one of the state’s highest judicial bodies. He subsequently served as an associate judge of the Hartford County Court from 1819 to 1821, and then as chief judge of that court from 1821 to 1823. His judicial service coincided with a period of constitutional and legal reform in Connecticut, following the adoption of the state’s new constitution in 1818. In 1821 he was chosen as one of a committee of three to prepare a revision of the statutes of Connecticut, a significant undertaking that aimed to bring the state’s laws into conformity with its new constitutional framework and to modernize and systematize existing legal provisions.

Parallel to his judicial work, Whitman entered elective office in state government. He was a member of the Connecticut Senate in 1822, representing his constituency in the upper chamber of the General Assembly at a time when national politics were increasingly shaped by the emerging factions that would become formal political parties. His legislative experience at the state level helped position him for service in the federal government and reflected his growing prominence in Connecticut public life.

Whitman was elected as an Adams-Clay Republican candidate to the Eighteenth Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1823, to March 3, 1825. His party affiliation placed him in the camp that supported the policies of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, including a stronger national government, internal improvements, and protective tariffs. Representing Connecticut in the House during the waning years of the so‑called “Era of Good Feelings,” Whitman participated in the legislative debates of a period marked by shifting political alignments and the gradual dissolution of the old Democratic-Republican consensus.

After leaving Congress, Whitman returned to Farmington and resumed the practice of law, continuing his engagement in public affairs at the state level. He served as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1831 and 1832, thereby completing a record of service that included both chambers of the state legislature as well as the federal House of Representatives. His combined experience as a legislator and judge made him a figure of some influence in the legal and political development of Connecticut during the first third of the nineteenth century.

Whitman spent his later years in Farmington, remaining identified with the town where he had been born, educated, and where he had built his legal and political career. He died in Farmington, Connecticut, on November 13, 1841. His life and work, recorded in contemporary legal and congressional directories, reflect the trajectory of a New England lawyer-statesman who moved between the bench and the legislature during a formative period in both Connecticut’s and the nation’s history.