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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—New Jersey / US

Jonathan DAYTON

(1760-1824)

Senate Years of Service:

1799-1805

Party:

Federalist

DAYTON, Jonathan, (son of Elias Dayton), a Delegate, a Representative, and a Senator from New Jersey; born in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), N.J., October 16, 1760; graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1776; studied law; admitted to the bar; during the Revolutionary War served in the Third and later the Second New Jersey Regiment of the Continental Army 1776-1783, attaining the rank of captain; taken prisoner at Elizabethtown, N.J., and later exchanged; member, State general assembly 1786-1787, 1790, and served as speaker in 1790; delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787 and signed the Constitution; Delegate to the Continental Congress 1787-1788; member, State council 1790; elected to the Second and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1791-March 3, 1799); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Fourth and Fifth Congresses); chairman, Committee on Elections (Third Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1798, having become a candidate for the United States Senate; elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1799, to March 3, 1805; was arrested in 1807 on the charge of conspiring with Aaron Burr in treasonable projects; subsequently released and never brought to trial; member, New Jersey assembly 1814-1815; died in Elizabethtown, N.J., October 9, 1824; interment in a vault in St. John’s Churchyard; the city of Dayton, Ohio, was named for him.