Philemon Beecher

Philemon Beecher (March 19, 1776 – November 30, 1839) was an Anglo-American attorney, legislator, and militia officer who served five terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio. He was born in Oxford, in the Connecticut Colony, the son of Abraham Beecher and Desire Tolles. Raised in New England, he received a classical education and then read law in the traditional manner of the period, preparing for admission to the bar at a time when formal law schools were rare in the United States.

Beecher moved west to Lancaster, in what is now Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1801, when the area was still part of the Northwest Territory. There he continued his legal studies and was admitted to the bar, beginning a long and prominent career as an attorney on the Ohio frontier. He quickly became recognized as the leading lawyer of the Lancaster bar, a position he held for roughly twenty-five years. His law office became a training ground for younger attorneys, most notably Thomas Ewing, who studied law under Beecher and later emerged as a significant lawyer and political figure in his own right. Beecher also frequently appeared as a barrister at the courthouse in Marietta, Ohio, extending his professional influence beyond Lancaster. During these early years in Ohio, he became a member of Scioto Lodge No. 2 of the Free and Accepted Masons, reflecting his integration into the civic and fraternal life of the growing community.

In his personal life, Beecher formed ties that further connected him to the region’s emerging elite. While living in Lancaster, he met Susan Gillespie, the daughter of Neil Gillespie of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, when she visited her sister, Mrs. Hugh Boyle, in Lancaster. Philemon Beecher and Susan Gillespie were married in Pennsylvania in 1803 or 1804, uniting two families active in the social and political life of the early Ohio settlements. Through this marriage he became connected to William W. Irvin, who married Susan’s sister and would later intersect with Beecher’s career in both the Ohio legislature and the United States Congress.

Originally a Federalist, Beecher entered public life soon after Ohio achieved statehood. He was elected a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1803, and he returned to that body for three consecutive sessions from 1805 to 1807. In 1807 he was chosen speaker of the Ohio House, a mark of his growing influence in state politics. His dark complexion earned him the sobriquet “the Black Knight,” a nickname by which he was widely known in contemporary political circles. In 1805 he opposed a resolution commending the United States government for the Louisiana Purchase, although the measure passed the Ohio House by a single vote. In 1806 he appeared as a witness on behalf of Fairfield County Common Pleas Judge William W. Irvin during Irvin’s impeachment trial; Irvin, who was married to the sister of Beecher’s future wife, was acquitted and would later follow Beecher into both the Ohio legislature and Congress, and eventually serve on the Ohio Supreme Court. Beecher himself was an unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator in 1807, losing to Edward Tiffin, and that same year he failed to secure appointment as a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court. He nonetheless remained a figure of consequence in public affairs and was appointed a major general in the Ohio militia, reflecting the importance of military organization in the young state during the early nineteenth century.

Beecher also participated in the economic development of Lancaster and its surrounding region. In 1816 the Lancaster Bank was chartered, and Beecher served as its president for one year, thereafter continuing for many years as a director. His role in the bank placed him at the center of local finance during a period of expanding commerce and settlement in central Ohio. By the 1820s he was described as an “old-line Whig,” signaling his alignment with the emerging national opposition to Jacksonian Democracy, although his earlier affiliations had been with the Federalist Party and then with the Adams-Clay Republican faction.

At the national level, Beecher’s congressional service spanned a transformative era in American politics. As a member of the Adams Party representing Ohio, he contributed to the legislative process during five terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents in a period marked by the decline of the first party system and the rise of new political alignments. He was first elected as a Federalist from Ohio’s 5th congressional district to the Fifteenth Congress (March 4, 1817 – March 3, 1819) and was reelected to the Sixteenth Congress (March 4, 1819 – March 3, 1821). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1820. Returning to national politics two years later, Beecher was elected in 1822 as an Adams-Clay Republican from the newly created Ohio 9th congressional district to the Eighteenth Congress (March 4, 1823 – March 3, 1825), and then as an Adams candidate to the Nineteenth (March 4, 1825 – March 3, 1827) and Twentieth (March 4, 1827 – March 3, 1829) Congresses. During the fiercely contested 1824 presidential election, in which Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams vied for influence in Ohio, Beecher supported the Adams faction and voted for John Quincy Adams in the struggle over Ohio’s electoral votes. His five terms in the House placed him among the more enduring Ohio representatives of his generation.

Beecher’s public activities extended beyond formal officeholding. In 1826 he served as a managing member of the Colonization Society in Lancaster, an organization that promoted the colonization of free African Americans in Africa as an alternative to slavery, reflecting one of the era’s prominent, if controversial, reform movements. In 1828 he sought reelection to Congress but was defeated by his brother-in-law, William W. Irvin, marking the end of his national legislative career. Thereafter he returned to Lancaster, where he resumed the full-time practice of law and remained a respected figure at the bar and in local affairs.

Philemon Beecher continued his legal work in Lancaster until his death there on November 30, 1839, at the age of 63. He and his wife, Susan Gillespie Beecher, were interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Lancaster. His career as a leading attorney, state legislator, militia officer, banker, and five-term member of Congress placed him among the notable early statesmen of Ohio, active in both the formative years of the state and the evolving national politics of the early nineteenth century.