Tristram Dalton was an American politician and merchant from Massachusetts.
19 Facts About Tristram Dalton
2.
Tristram Dalton served a single term as one of the first United States senators, from 1789 to 1791.
3.
Tristram Dalton was for many years one of the leading citizens of Newburyport, Massachusetts, but lost most of his fortune due to ill-timed and mismanaged investments in the real estate of Washington, DC.
4.
Tristram Dalton was born in a part of Newbury, Massachusetts, that is Newburyport, the only child of Michael and Mary Dalton.
5.
Tristram Dalton graduated from Harvard College in 1755, in a class that included John Adams.
6.
Tristram Dalton was not significantly involved in politics until 1774, when the tensions of the American Revolution were rising but the American Revolutionary War had not yet started.
7.
Tristram Dalton was elected to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Newburyport board of selectmen in 1774, and was an active proponent of independence after the war broke out.
8.
Tristram Dalton's contributions included provisioning of ships from his merchant fleet to the Penobscot Expedition of 1780.
9.
Tristram Dalton served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1782 to 1785, and served as its speaker in 1784.
10.
Tristram Dalton served as a Massachusetts state senator from 1786 to 1788.
11.
Tristram Dalton was elected to the Continental Congress in 1783 and 1784, but did not attend.
12.
Tristram Dalton was elected as a delegate to the state convention on the adoption of the United States Constitution, in which he advocated for its adoption.
13.
Tristram Dalton filled the seat vacated by William Cranch who was appointed to the bench in the new capitol and served for a little over a year until the Board of Commissioners of the Federal City was disbanded in 1802.
14.
Tristram Dalton had married Ruth Hooper, the daughter of a wealthy Marblehead merchant, in 1761.
15.
Tristram Dalton's investment was a failure, as Washington real estate did not appreciate, and he had invested through an unscrupulous agent, wiping out most of his fortune.
16.
Tristram Dalton is interred in the churchyard of St Paul's Episcopal Church in Newburyport.
17.
In 1804, Tristram Dalton buried his slave, named Fortune, in the all white consecrated Old Burying Hill Cemetery by the Bartlet Mall in Newburport.
18.
Tristram Dalton was a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780.
19.
Tristram Dalton is the namesake of Dalton, Massachusetts, Dalton, New Hampshire and Dalton, Georgia.