Cadwallader D. Colden

Cadwallader D. Colden
File:Cadwallader D. Colden Esq Mayor of the City of New York.jpeg
54th Mayor of New York City
In office 1818–1821
Preceded by	John Ferguson
Succeeded by	Stephen Allen
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 1st district
In office December 12, 1821 – March 3, 1823
Preceded by	James Guyon, Jr.
Succeeded by	Silas Wood
Personal details
Born	April 4, 1769 Springhill, near Flushing
Died	Jersey City, New Jersey

Cadwallader David Colden (April 4, 1769 – February 7, 1834) was an American politician. He served as the 54th Mayor of New York City.

Life

He was the grandson of Colonial leader Cadwallader Colden. He was taught by a private tutor, and then provided a classical education in Jamaica, New York and in London. After returning to the United States in 1785, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1791.

He first practiced law in New York City, moved to Poughkeepsie, New York in 1793, and then returned to New York in 1796. From 1798 to 1801, he was Assistant Attorney General for the First District, comprising Suffolk, Queens, Kings, Richmond and Westchester counties. From 1810 to 1811, he was District Attorney of the First District, comprising the above mentioned counties and New York County.

Colden was an active Freemason. He was the Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of New York in 1801-1805 and 1810-1819.

He became a Colonel of Volunteers in the War of 1812. In 1815 Cadwallader D. Colden was president of the New York Manumission Society, established in 1785 to promote the abolition of slavery in the state, and oversaw the rebuilding of the Society’s African Free School in New York City. Later historians cited the energetic aid of Colden, Peter A. Jay, William Jay, Governor Tompkins, and others in influencing the Legislature to set the date of July 4, 1827, for the entire abolition of slavery in New York.

He was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1818, and the 54th Mayor of New York City from 1818 to 1821, appointed by Governor DeWit Clinton of New York. He successfully contested the election of Peter Sharpe to the 17th United States Congress and served from December 12, 1821, to March 3, 1823. He was a member of the New York State Senate (1st District) from 1825 to 1827, when he resigned.

After his resignation from the State Senate, he moved to Jersey City where he devoted much of his time to the completion of the Morris Canal. Colden died in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1834, and was removed in 1843 from an interment in that state to a receiving vault in Trinity Church Cemetery in upper Manhattan in New York City. He was removed in 1845 to a prominent spot in the cemetery's Easterly Division, overlooking the then rural intersection of the Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) at West 153rd Street. By 1869, preparations to widen Broadway where the road cut through the cemetery caused Colden to be removed to another plot. His inconspicuous plot in the cemetery's Westerly Division was essentially forgotten until a local historian rediscovered it in July 2011.

Literary accomplishments

A proponent of a national canal system, in 1825 Colden was commissioned by the Common Council of New York City, during the last days of the construction of the Erie Canal, to write his Memoir, Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York, and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals. The work and its Appendix contain period lithographs of the canal construction and highlights of the "Grand Canal Celebration" at New York City.

References

• Political Graveyard
• Cadwallader D. Colden at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• The White House, Where Aaron Burr arranged his memoirs, from Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
• The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 126, 139, 193, 266 and 366f; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)

External links

• [1]
• Excerpts from Colden's Memoir

Legal offices
Preceded by Richard Riker	District Attorney of the First District Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk and Westchester counties 1810–1811	Succeeded by Richard Riker
Political offices
Preceded by Jacob Radcliff	Mayor of New York City 1818–1821	Succeeded by Stephen Allen
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by James Guyon, Jr., Silas Wood	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 1st congressional district 1821–1823 with Silas Wood	Succeeded by Silas Wood