Biography:
Henry Dearborn (February 23, 1751 – June 6, 1829) was an
American physician, a
statesman and a
veteran of both the
American Revolutionary War and the
War of 1812. Born to Simon Dearborn and Sarah Marston in
North Hampton, New Hampshire, he spent much of his youth in
Epping, where he attended public schools. He studied medicine and opened a practice on the square in
Nottingham in 1772.
When fighting in the
American Revolutionary War began, he organized and led a local militia troop of 60 men to
Boston where he fought at the
Battle of Bunker Hill as a captain in Colonel
John Stark’s
First New Hampshire Regiment. He then volunteered to serve under Col.
Benedict Arnold, (1740/41-1801), during the difficult
American expedition to Quebec. His journal is an important record for that campaign. He was captured on December 31, 1775, during the
Battle of Quebec in
Lower Canada and detained for a year. He was released on
parole in May 1776, but he was not exchanged until March 1777.
After fighting at
Ticonderoga,
Freeman's Farm and
Saratoga, Dearborn joined General
George Washington's, (1732-1799), main
Continental Army at
Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania as a lieutenant colonel where he spent the winter of 1777–1778. He fought at the
Battle of Monmouth in
New Jersey, in 1778 following the British evacuation of
Philadelphia to retreat to concentrate at
New York City, in the final major battle of the Northern Theatre, and in 1779, he accompanied Major General
John Sullivan on the
Sullivan Expedition against the
Iroquois in upstate
New York. During the winter of 1778-1779, he was encamped at what is now
Putnam Memorial State Park in
Redding, Connecticut. Dearborn rejoined General Washington’s staff in 1781 as deputy quartermaster general with the rank of Colonel, and was present when
Cornwallis surrendered after the
Battle of Yorktown in
Virginia in October 1781.
In June 1783, he received his discharge from the
Continental Army and settled in
Gardiner, Maine (with the
"District of Maine" then being a part of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts). He was an original member of the Massachusetts
Society of the Cincinnati. He was commissioned as a brigadier general in the
Massachusetts Militia in 1787 and was promoted to major general in 1789. The same year he was appointed as the first
U.S. Marshal for the
District of Maine under the new Constitution of 1787 by first
President Washington. He represented this district as a
Democratic-Republican in the
Third and
Fourth Congresses from 1793 to 1797. In 1801, third President
Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826), appointed him
Secretary of War, a post he held for eight years until March 7, 1809. During his tenure, he helped plan the removal of Indians beyond the
Mississippi River.
He was appointed collector of the port of Boston by President
James Madison in 1809, a position he held until January 27, 1812, when he was appointed as the senior major general in the
United States Army. He was given command of the northeast sector from the
Niagara River to the
New England coast. During the War of 1812, Dearborn prepared plans for simultaneous assaults on
Montreal,
Kingston,
Fort Niagara, and
Amherstburg, but the execution was imperfect. Some scholars believe that he did not move quickly enough to provide sufficient troops to defend Detroit.
William Hull, without firing a shot, surrendered the city to British General
Isaac Brock.
Although Dearborn had minor successes at the
capture of York (now
Toronto) on April 27, 1813, and at the capture of
Fort George on May 27, 1813, his command was, for the most part, ineffective. He was recalled from the frontier on July 6, 1813, and reassigned to an administrative command in
New York City. Dearborn was honorably discharged from the Army on June 15, 1815.
President
James Madison nominated Dearborn for reappointment as Secretary of War, but the Senate rejected the nomination. He was later appointed
Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal by President
James Monroe and served from May 7, 1822 until June 30, 1824 when, by his own request, he was recalled.
He retired to his home in
Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he died 5 years later. He is interred in
Forest Hills Cemetery, in
Jamaica Plain outside of Boston at the time, and later on
Jamaica Plain was annexed in 1874.
Dearborn was married three times: to Mary Bartlett in 1771, to Dorcas (Osgood) Marble in 1780, and to Sarah Bowdoin, widow of
James Bowdoin, in 1813.
Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn was his son by his second wife.
Lewis and Clark, appointed by Thomas Jefferson, named the
Dearborn River in west-central
Montana after Dearborn in 1803.
Dearborn County, Indiana;
Dearborn, Michigan; and
Dearborn, Missouri were also named for him, as was
Fort Dearborn in
Chicago, which in turn was the namesake for Dearborn Street, a major street in downtown Chicago. His son,
Henry A. S. Dearborn, was a congressman in 1831-1833.