John Langdon
John Langdon ran away to sea rather than join his father’s farming businesses, and by the time he was in his early twenties he had acquired several ships of his own, operating out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Langdon engaged in the Triangle trade, his ships carrying goods to Africa, exchanged for slaves carried to the Caribbean, and there exchanged for sugar and rum before returning to Portsmouth. His brother Woodbury engaged in a similar enterprise, and the two became leading members of Portsmouth society before the Revolutionary War. They were also quite wealthy.
It was their wealth, or rather the threat to it, which led the brothers to begin to oppose British rule of the colonies, as Parliament’s mercantile laws began to affect their bottom lines. John Langdon became an avid supporter of the Sons of Liberty in Boston and organized similar groups in Portsmouth. In 1774 a Portsmouth demonstration organized by Langdon and some others seized the arms and munitions in Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor, claiming that they belonged to the Province and not to the few British troops stationed there. This was one of the earliest acts of defiance against armed British troops.
Langdon served briefly in the Second Continental Congress but decided he could better serve the cause of the Revolution by building and operating ships. Several ships of the Continental Navy were built by Langdon’s yards and others were fitted out as privateers to harass British shipping. John Paul Jones stayed at Portsmouth for a time to supervise the building of the ship of the line America. The ship was completed after the war was over and given to France. Jones earlier in the war commanded the sloop Ranger, built by Langdon. It was in Ranger that Jones raided the port of Whitehaven in the British Isles.
Langdon was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from New Hampshire, and participated in the manner expected of a delegate of a small state when the debate was over proportional representation. He supported the Great Compromise as well as the designation of slaves as three fifths of an individual person for the purposes of representation. Following ratification he was elected to the US Senate and served as the first President pro Tempore of the Senate. He served two terms in the Senate, at first supporting the Federalist policies of Hamilton, though he gradually began to adopt the position of the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson and Madison.
Langdon remained active in New Hampshire politics following his departure from the national stage. When the war of 1812 began he was serving as the governor of New Hampshire. Later that same year he was suggested as the nominee for the office of Vice President of the United States, a motion supported by President James Madison, but he declined the opportunity to return to a national office. Langdon died in 1819 in Portsmouth, having served the young nation as a shipbuilder, a financier, and as a Senator, as well as contributing significantly to the success of the state of New Hampshire.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Rodney, Caesar”, by John A. Munroe, entry, American National Biography Online, February 2000
“Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic”, by Mark David Hall, 2013
“Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution”, by Charles Rappleye, 2010
“George Wythe”, online biography, Colonial Williamsburg, online
“George Mason, Westerner”, by Kenneth P. Bailey, The William and Mary Quarterly, October 1943
“Jonathan Dayton”, entry, US Army Center of Military History, online
“Daniel Carroll: A Framer of the Constitution”, by Mary Virginia Geiger, 1943
“James McHenry, Forgotten Federalist”, by Karen E. Robbins, 2013
“John Langdon”, entry, US Army Center of Military History, online