for a public celebration of the approaching anniversary of American Independence, and to learn that he made the oration on that occasion.

His story for the next few years is typical of the young political enthusiast of his day, given the hard work of the organization to do and advanced to more important duties as his fitness appeared. A gift for expression seems to have been quickly noticed and utilized by the local leaders. Thus the boy orator of July 4, 1835, was next called upon to voice the sentiments of the democratic young men of Bradford County in the Van Buren-Harrison campaign; and the result of his effort is worth reproducing as his first political document: 2

WHEREAS, the approaching Presidential election is a subject of deep and vital interest to every American citizen, inasmuch as its results will affect either favorably or adversely the happiness, prosperity, and even the liberties of the American people; and whereas, All true patriots, and especially the young men of our country, who are now enjoying in peace the rich blessings secured to them by the blood of their fathers, are bound by the most holy and sacred obligations that can be imposed upon men, to protect, defend and sustain that liberty and that country so dearly earned; and whereas, This can only be done by a firm, steady and united support for the offices of the Republic, of such men as are known to be attached to those primary and fundamental principles of republicanism, upon which rests the very basis of our free institutions; therefore

Resolved, That we cordially approve of the project of holding a Young Men's State Convention on the approaching anniversary of our Independence; and regard the measure as well calculated to call forth the energies and concentrate the strength of the democratic young men of the State for the coming Presidential contest.

Resolved, That we recognize Martin Van Buren and Richard M. Johnson, the nominees of the National Convention, as the regularly nominated candidates for President and Vice-President, and will use all honorable and fair means to secure their election.

2 Wilmot's report as chairman of a committee of eleven on resolutions, at a meeting held at Towanda, May 10, 1836; published in the Northern Banner, May 21.

Resolved, That the indications of aristocracy discoverable in the acts and illiberal policy of the present State administration are sufficient to arouse our strongest energies to prevent its further extension.

Resolved, That the present legislature of Pennsylvania, have acted in direct violation of the wishes of the people, in not providing for a more speedy call of a convention to amend the State Constitution.

Resolved, That seventeen delegates be appointed to represent this county in the Young Men's State Convention to be held on the Fourth of July next, and the said delegates have the power to fill vacancies.

Whereupon the following gentlemen were appointed said delegates-William Elwell, David Wilmot, J. C. Adams, Victor E. Piollet. .

..

The following month (June 29, 1836), he appears again on a committee of twenty appointed to express the sense of a canal meeting, which was generally that a speedy connection of the Pennsylvania improvements with those of New York, by water, was of paramount interest to both States.

And then came the Fourth of July. It does not appear whether or not something happened to disappoint the project for the young men's state convention, which had been formulated in May; but on the day designated for its assembly, a number of the seventeen delegates selected to attend it are recorded as taking part in the ceremonies by which the "60th anniversary of our National Independence was celebrated at Capt. Jesse Woodruff's coffee house in the borough of Towanda . . . in a manner becoming freemen, in the most perfect union and harmony, without distinction of party. At 12 o'clock the procession was formed under the direction of Thomas Elliott and Gen. Wm. Patton, President and Vice President of the day, and marched to the Courthouse, where the Declaration of Independence was read by D. Wilmot, Esq., and an Oration delivered by J. C. Adams, Esq." And later, D. Wilmot, Esq., offered the fourth volunteer toast, im

mediately after the president, the vice president and the orator of the day. It was:

The Union of the States-Founded upon a mutual compromise of the interests of each-may any attempt to violate it, be regarded as treason against the liberties of the people. 3 cheers.

The toast was perhaps merely a conventional phrasing of a seasonable patriotic sentiment; but reread nearly a century later, it seems almost to suggest the spirit of prophecy.

3

Wilmot at this time was barely twenty-two; but as in his profession and in politics, so in other matters of close personal import he was settling the channels of his life swiftly and definitely. November 28, 1836, in Bethlehem, he married Anna Morgan, a girl four months his junior, who was destined to survive him twenty years. She was the daughter of Thomas H. and Katherine (Gregory) Morgan, generally referred to as "of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania," though at a later period Morgan was certainly the proprietor of a hotel on River Street, below Northampton Street, in Wilkes-Barre, and local tradition declares confidently that it was in the parlor of that hotel that David proposed and Anna accepted him. His fatherin-law appears to have been a man of many activities, giving part of his attention to the operation of stage lines or contracts for transportation in that part of the State. And "the landlord of a hotel in that day was a man of consequence. A great bulk of the people were engaged in agriculture, met very few people except their own circle of acquaintances, and had rather a narrow view of life; whereas a landlord came in constant contact with strangers, kept in touch with the outside. world and informed of what was going on, all of which tended to broaden him somewhat. Further than that, he usually had ready cash, the product of his business, of which his neighbors ordinarily were short. All these things combined were calcu

* She died in 1888, but for some time before the end she was completely estranged mentally.

lated to make him a man of influence and quite distinct from the landlord of the present day."

Anna Morgan is described by one who knew her as a brilliant woman, of striking appearance-"a good housekeeper in the sense of knowing what should be done and how it should be done, but never in the sense of doing anything about the house herself." She is spoken of as having been ambitious, enjoying the distinction brought by her husband's fame in later years; but no trace of her influence and no faintest echo of her reactions to the great interests that engrossed him, or to the events in which he participated, can be found in any of Wilmot's words or writings or in anything recorded by his contemporaries. She was rarely with him in Washington at any time during his membership in the House of Representatives, while he was serving on the Peace Commission, or even when he was in the Senate or on the bench of the Court of Claims. The official directories of the period, which are meticulous in their details of the residence of wives or other female members of official families, are explicit and positive in their record that David Wilmot was unaccompanied except for a short time during the first session of the 29th Congress and the second session of the 30th.

Three children were born of this union-Clarence Grant, David, and Thomas Morgan, of whom only the last named lived to maturity, dying, in 1875, at the age of thirty.

But to return to the young barrister and politician. His professional fortunes were evidently rising, for he not only felt sufficiently sure of himself and of the future to take a wife and invite the responsibilities of a family, but eighteen months later, in May, 1833, he came to the relief of his father by purchasing (for $500) the square north of the courthouse in Coudersport, Pa., and establishing Randall Wilmot upon it; and four years later, when Randall's fortunes again went wrong and creditors seized upon his interest in this tract and

5

4 Letter from Hon. George R. Bedford, of Wilkes-Barre. Land records of Potter County, Pa.

offered it for sale to satisfy their claims, David came to the rescue and bought it in for $375,° later taking a general power of attorney to settle up his father's affairs to the best advantage possible."

In spite of any demands on his time and resources which may have been caused by these crises in family affairs, David Wilmot's progress toward a more forward position in the democratic party in his district was preparing to move in a more rapid tempo. The congressional convention of September 19, 1838, in which he served as one of the conferees from Bradford County and as secretary of the convention itself, raised a flare of excitement that was turned like a spot-light upon the actors, and continued to glimmer and to flash out anew for years afterwards. It was merely a local and factional quarrel, fed by contesting delegations from three of the counties in the district (Tioga, Potter and McKean) and by the rival ambitions of two candidates for the nomination as member of Congress, Willard and Morris. It fell to the remaining counties of the old seventeenth district-Susquehanna and Bradford to organize the convention and pass on the conflicting claims of the other delegates, and in this task Wilmot took a prominent part. So far as the record can be interpreted under the violent partisan coloring given to it by the contemporary press, his course throughout seems to have been marked by fairness and good sense. Incidentally, he supported the successful candidate, Samuel W. Morris, of Tioga County; and this success made his enemies all the more implacable. Years later, hostile editors would occasionally refer to what Wilmot did in 1838, as if it were a political crime too dark to be more explicitly described.

But his next move is interesting as suggesting a determination neither to leave all propaganda to his opponents, nor to fight for democratic success merely on petty issues of personal

6 Land records of Potter County, Pa.

Executed in Trumbull County, Ohio, April 5, 1843.