Jonathan Russell was a United States representative from Massachusetts and diplomat.
19 Facts About Jonathan Russell
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Jonathan Russell served the 11th congressional district from 1821 to 1823 and was the first chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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Jonathan Russell attended the local schools and graduated from Rhode Island College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1791 and a Master of Arts in 1794.
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Jonathan Russell studied law and was admitted to the bar, but did not practice.
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Jonathan Russell engaged in the mercantile business in partnership with Otis Ammidon, importing goods from Europe for sale in America.
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In 1811, Russell was appointed by President James Madison as Charge d'Affaires and in Paris and he acted as Minister to France following the departure of John Armstrong Jr.
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Jonathan Russell soon transferred to England, where he was Charge d'Affaires and acting Minister when war was declared by the United States in 1812.
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Jonathan Russell was Minister to Sweden and Norway from January 18,1814 to October 16,1818.
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Jonathan Russell was one of the five commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent with Great Britain in 1814, which ended the War of 1812.
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Jonathan Russell returned to the United States in 1818 and settled in Mendon, Massachusetts.
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Jonathan Russell became a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1820, and served as a delegate to that year's state constitutional convention.
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In November 1820, Jonathan Russell was elected to the United States House of Representatives.
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Jonathan Russell served in the Seventeenth Congress, and was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the first individual to hold this position.
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In 1822, Jonathan Russell authored a pamphlet accusing John Quincy Adams, one of Jonathan Russell's fellow negotiators at Ghent in 1814, of having favored British interests in those treaty talks.
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Jonathan Russell intended the pamphlet to further Henry Clay's presidential candidacy against Adams in the 1824 election.
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Adams's responsive pamphlets were so devastating in impugning Russell's veracity that they engendered the phrase "to Jonathan Russell" someone, meaning to refute an attacker's falsehoods so effectively that it destroys the attacker's reputation.
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Jonathan Russell had known Lafayette since 1811, and decorated his home for a lavish celebration with the anticipation of renewing their friendship.
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Jonathan Russell was interred in the family plot on his estate in Milton.
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Jonathan Russell was the father of eight children, four with each wife:.