Biography:
Uriah Tracy (February 2, 1755 – July 19, 1807) was an eighteenth-century
American lawyer and politician from
Connecticut. He served in both the
House of Representatives and the
Senate.
Tracy was born in
Franklin, Connecticut. In his youth he received a liberal education.
[1] His name is listed as amongst those in a
company from
Roxbury responding to the
Lexington Alarm at the beginning of the
American Revolutionary War. He later served in the Roxbury Company as a
clerk[1]
Tracy subsequently graduated from
Yale University where his contemporaries included
Noah Webster in 1778. He was admitted to the bar in 1781 after which he practiced law in
Litchfield for many years.
[2] He served in the state legislature in 1788–1793, and in the
United States House of Representatives from April 8, 1793– October 13, 1796, having been chosen as a
Federalist.
[3]
He resigned his seat when he was elected to the United States Senate in place of
Jonathan Trumbull, who had resigned.
[4] Tracy served until the time of his death in
Washington, D. C.. He has the distinction of being the first member of Congress interred in the
Congressional Cemetery.
[1] His descendants include the mathematician
Curtis Tracy McMullen and the author
Jeanie Gould.
[5]
In 1803, he and several other New England politicians proposed secession of New England from the union due to growing influence of Jeffersonian democrats and the Louisiana Purchase which they felt would further diminish Northern influence.
His portrait, painted by
Ralph Earl, is in the collection of the Litchfield Historical Society in Litchfield, Connecticut.