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William Anderson (1762 – December 16, 1829) was an American politician who served as a Democratic-Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1809 to 1815 and from 1817 to 1819.

Early life and military service

William Anderson was born in Accomack County in the Colony of Virginia in 1762. During the Revolutionary War, he joined the Continental Army at the age of fifteen and served until the end of the war. He was a major on the staff of General Lafayette and distinguished himself at Germantown and Yorktown.

He was married to Elizabeth Dixon. In 1796, Anderson became engaged in the hotel business through the purchase of the Columbia House in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Political career

He served as Delaware County auditor in 1804 and county director of the poor in 1805. He was a Jeffersonian democrat and held many public offices.

Anderson was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Congresses. He was elected to the Fifteenth Congress. He was appointed an associate judge of the county court on January 5, 1826, and resigned in 1828 to become an inspector of customs in Philadelphia. He served until his death in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1829 and was interred in Old St. Paul's Church Cemetery.

Slaveholding

Under Pennsylvania gradual abolition law, enslavers had six months to register the children of women they held in bondage. On July 2, 1806, Anderson registered a nineteen-week-old "male mulatto bastard child" named Francis as his property for twenty-eight years with the Delaware County clerk of courts. This registration reveals that Anderson owned Francis' mother, whom he held in either lifetime or term slavery.

References

1. Martin, John Hill (1877). Chester (and its Vicinity,) Delaware County, in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Pile & Sons. pp. 254–255. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
2. Ashmead, Henry Graham (1883). Historical Sketch of Chester, on Delaware. Chester, PA: Republican Steam Printing House. p. 89. Retrieved May 5, 2018.
3. Martin, John Hill (1877). Chester (and its Vicinity,) Delaware County, in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Pile & Sons. p. 85. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
4. Ashmead, Henry Graham; Hungerford, Austin N. (1884). History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Cornell University Library. Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & co.
5. Weil, Julie Zauzmer; Blanco, Adrian; Dominguez, Leo (January 10, 2022). "More than 1,800 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation". Washington Post. Retrieved April 16, 2022. Updated 12 April 2022

Sources

• United States Congress. "William Anderson (id: A000235)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard

• 1762 births
• 1829 deaths
• People from Accomack County, Virginia
• People from colonial Virginia
• American politicians of Dutch descent
• Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania
• Pennsylvania state court judges
• Members of the United States House of Representatives who owned slaves
• Politicians from Chester, Pennsylvania
• Continental Army officers from Pennsylvania
• 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives