Nathaniel Pitcher

Nathaniel Pitcher (November 30, 1777 – May 25, 1836) was an American lawyer, militia officer, and politician who served in the United States Congress and as the eighth governor of New York from February 11 to December 31, 1828. He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on November 30, 1777, the son of Nathaniel Pitcher Sr. (1750–1802), a veteran of the American Revolution who led the detachment that captured Fort George at Lake George from the British in 1775. In his youth, the younger Pitcher moved with his family to Sandy Hill, New York (now Hudson Falls), where he was raised and educated. He studied law in Sandy Hill, was admitted to the bar, and established a legal practice there.

Pitcher entered public life in Washington County, New York, as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. He served as town supervisor of Kingsbury from 1804 to 1810 and held several other local offices, including town clerk of Kingsbury in 1813 and 1814 and justice of the peace, with appointments in 1804, 1806, 1807, 1808, and 1811. He was elected to the New York State Assembly for multiple terms, serving from 1806 to 1807, again from 1815 to 1816, and from 1816 to 1818. From 1812 to 1813 he served as surrogate (probate) judge of Washington County, and during the War of 1812 he was appointed federal revenue assessor for the 10th District of New York, which included Washington County, administering taxes imposed to support the national war effort.

Following his father’s example, Pitcher was long active in the New York Militia. He received his first commission as an ensign in 1802. In 1808 he was appointed adjutant of the regiment commanded by Micajah Pettit, and later that year he was promoted to major and named inspector of the brigade commanded by Warren Ferris. During the War of 1812 he was included in a militia detail of 13,500 soldiers called into federal service for operations along the Canada–western New York frontier. In 1815 he was appointed lieutenant colonel and second in command of the 121st Regiment of the militia, and later that year he succeeded Pettit as commander of the 17th Brigade with the rank of brigadier general. Because of this service, he was widely referred to in public records and contemporary newspapers as “General Pitcher” or “Gen. Pitcher.”

Pitcher’s state and local prominence led to election to national office. He was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses and served in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1819, to March 3, 1823. While in Congress he represented New York during a period marked by the aftermath of the War of 1812 and the “Era of Good Feelings,” and he also took part in state constitutional reform as a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1821. After leaving Congress, he remained active in New York politics and continued his legal and militia activities.

In 1826 Pitcher was elected lieutenant governor of New York, taking office in 1827. He served under Governor DeWitt Clinton until Clinton’s death in office on February 11, 1828, whereupon Pitcher succeeded to the governorship as the state’s eighth governor. He completed the remainder of Clinton’s term, serving from February 11 to December 31, 1828, during a time of intense factional conflict within New York’s Democratic-Republican and emerging Jacksonian political coalitions. He was succeeded as governor by Martin Van Buren, who took office on January 1, 1829. Pitcher later returned to national office when he was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-second Congress, serving again in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1831, to March 3, 1833.

Pitcher’s personal life included two marriages and several children. His first wife was Margaret Scott (1782–1815), with whom he had sons Augustus (1808–1876), Matthew Scott (1810–1858), and Montgomery Pike (1813–1841). After Margaret Scott’s death, he married Anna B. Merritt (1791–1824) of Freedom Plains, New York, on March 15, 1823. She died soon after the birth of their son, Edward Merritt Pitcher (1824–1860). Edward later moved to California in the 1840s, became an early settler of Sacramento, and served on Sacramento County’s first board of supervisors. Among Nathaniel Pitcher’s siblings was Zina Pitcher, who became a prominent physician and later mayor of Detroit, further extending the family’s public profile.

In his later years, Pitcher remained a respected figure in Washington County. He died in Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), New York, on May 25, 1836. He was interred at Baker Cemetery in Hudson Falls. The town of Pitcher in Chenango County, New York, was named in his honor, reflecting his standing in the state’s early nineteenth-century political life. Pitcher is the only governor of New York for whom no authenticated likeness is known to exist; despite repeated efforts by historians and archivists, no verified portrait or image has been found. An image sometimes identified as his portrait has been determined not to depict him, as the subject’s clothing and facial hair date from the 1850s–1860s, at least two decades after Pitcher’s death.