Samuel Taggart (March 24, 1754 – April 25, 1825) was a

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

Minister, an American politician and a U. S. Representative from

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

Early life

The son of Matthew Taggart, he was born in Londonderry in the

Province of New Hampshire The Province of New Hampshire was a colony of England and later a British province in North America. The name was first given in 1629 to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America, and was n ...

on March 24, 1754. Taggart completed preparatory studies, and graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

in 1774. He studied theology and was licensed to preach.

Career

Ordained to the

ministry on February 19, 1777, Taggart was installed as pastor of a church in

Colrain, Massachusetts Colrain is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,606 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Colrain was first settled in 1735 as "Boston T ...

. He then journeyed as a missionary through western New York. Taggart was elected as a Federalist to the Eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses, serving as a United States Representative for the sixth district of the state of Massachusetts (March 4, 1803 – March 3, 1817). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1816, but continued his service as pastor of the Colrain Presbyterian Church until October 28, 1818, when he resigned.

Death

Taggart died on his farm in

, on April 25, 1825 (age 71 years, 32 days). He is

interred Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

at Chandler Hill Cemetery.

Family life

Born son of James and Jean Anderson Taggart, he married Elizabeth Duncan in 1777 and they had twelve children: Robert, Samuel D., Daniel, Jean, Elizabeth Betsy, James, George, Mary Polly, Rufus, Esther, Lucy, and Moses. Elizabeth died on March 4, 1815, and he married Mary Ayer on March 25, 1816. They had three children: Catherine, Mary Ann, and William Ayer.

Bibliography

*Taggart, Samuel
“Letters of Samuel Taggart: Representative in Congress from 1803 to 1814: Part I, 1803-1807”
Edited by George H. Haynes. ''Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society'' 33 (April 1923): 113-226. *Taggart, Samuel
“Letters of Samuel Taggart: Representative in Congress from 1803 to 1814: Part II, 1808-1814"
Edited by George H. Haynes. ''Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society'' 33 (October 1923): 297-438.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Taggart, Samuel 1754 births 1825 deaths People from Londonderry, New Hampshire American Presbyterians American people of Scotch-Irish descent Dartmouth College alumni Federalist Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts People from Colrain, Massachusetts