Walter Folger Jr. (June 12, 1765 – September 8, 1849) was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

Biography

Born in

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island in the state of Massachusetts in the United States, about south of the Cape Cod peninsula. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Island, Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and Co ...

in the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Eng ...

, Folger was a member of a large family that included his sister, diarist Phebe ''Folger'' Coleman. Notably he was the great-great-great grandson of Peter Folger and Mary Morrell Folger and first cousin three times removed of

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

. Through his mother he is also a member or the Starbuck whaling family of Nantucket. He attended public schools before studying law. He was

admitted to the bar An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...

and practiced before serving as member of the Massachusetts State Senate. Folger was elected as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

to the Fifteenth Congress and reelected to the Sixteenth Congress (March 4, 1817 – March 3, 1821). He resumed the practice of law, and died in

on September 8, 1849. He was interred in Friends Burying Ground.

References

1765 births 1849 deaths Massachusetts state senators Massachusetts lawyers People from Nantucket, Massachusetts Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives {{Massachusetts-Representative-stub