Ambrose Spencer

Ambrose Spencer (December 13, 1765 Salisbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut - March 13, 1848 Lyons, Wayne County, New York) was an American lawyer and politician.

Life

He attended Yale College from 1779 to 1782, and graduated from Harvard University in 1783. He studied law with John Canfield (ca.1740-1786) at Sharon, Connecticut, with John Bay at Claverack, New York, and with Ezekiel Gilbert at Hudson, New York. He married John Canfield's daughter Laura (1768-1807) in 1784. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Hudson, N.Y., where he was city clerk from 1786 to 1793.

He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1793 to 1795, and of the New York State Senate from 1795 to 1804.

From 1796 to 1801, he was Assistant Attorney General for the Third District, comprising Columbia and Rensselaer Counties. He was New York State Attorney General from 1802 to 1804. From 1804 to 1819, he was an associate justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and Chief Justice from 1819 to 1823. The University of Pennsylvania awarded him the degree of LL.D. in 1819, and Harvard the same in 1821. He was a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1821. He was Mayor of Albany from 1824 to 1826, and then resumed the practice of law in Albany, New York.

He was elected to the Twenty-first United States Congress, serving from March 4, 1829 to March 3, 1831; during this Congress, he was a member of the Committee on Agriculture. He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1830 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Judge James H. Peck of the United States District Court for Missouri.

In 1839, he moved to Lyons, N.Y., and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was president of the Whig National Convention at Baltimore in 1844.

In 1848 he died in Lyons, and was buried at the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York.

Family

His son John Canfield Spencer was U.S. Secretary of War and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President John Tyler. His grandson Philip Spencer was executed for mutiny in 1842.

After the death of Ambrose's first wife Laura Canfield (1768-1807), he married Mary Clinton (1773-1808, sister of Governor DeWitt Clinton). After Mary's death, he married her sister Katherine Clinton (1778-1837).

U.S Representative James B. Spencer was a distant cousin of him.

ources

*CongBio|S000721
* [http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/henry/bios/jamesclinton.htm] Clinton genealogy
* [http://freepages.folklore.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pahlow/clinton3.htm] Clinton genealogy, at rootsweb
* [http://www.oag.state.ny.us/previous_aglist.html] List of NY State Attorneys General, at Office of the Att. Gal. of NY
* [http://books.google.com.br/books?id=hKIYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=ambrose+spencer+laura+canfield&source=web&ots=BsUnrxsGX6&sig=Ib1bfd1ZBvp0D0_odTzVFyHIcaw&hl=pt-BR#PPA338,M1 Google Book] "The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1849" (page 338, Charles C. Little & James Brown, Boston, 1848)
* [http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/p/o/p/Sandra-Popiel/FILE/0711text.txt] Canfield genealogy

External links

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