Caleb Strong

Caleb Strong
6th and 10th Governor of Massachusetts
In office May 30, 1800 – May 29, 1807 June 1812 – May 30, 1816
Lieutenant	Samuel Phillips, Jr. (1801-1802) Edward H. Robbins (1802-1806) William Phillips, Jr. (1812-1816)
Preceded by	Increase Sumner (1800) Moses Gill as Acting Governor Governor's Council (1800) Elbridge Gerry (1812)
Succeeded by	James Sullivan (1807) John Brooks (1816)
United States Senator from Massachusetts
In office March 4, 1789 – June 1, 1796
Preceded by	Office Created
Succeeded by	Theodore Sedgwick
Personal details
Born	January 9, 1745 Northampton, Massachusetts
Died	November 7, 1819 (aged 74) Northampton, Massachusetts
Political party	Federalist/Pro-Administration
Alma mater	Harvard University
Signature

Caleb Strong (January 9, 1745 – November 7, 1819) was Massachusetts lawyer and politician who served as the sixth and tenth Governor of Massachusetts between 1800 and 1807, and again from 1812 until 1816.

Biography

Strong was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. During the American Revolution he served on the Northampton Committee of Safety. He was a delegate to the 1779 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention and helped write the 1780 state constitution. He was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780 but did not serve. He sat on the first Massachusetts Governor's Council, and was a state senator from 1780 to 1789.^[1]

Strong was elected as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the U.S. Constitution. Illness of his wife forced him to return to Massachusetts before the work was completed, so he did not sign the document. However, he supported its adoption by the state's ratifying convention.

Governor Strong opposed the War of 1812 to the point of refusing to call out the state militia to support the war. A strong Federalist, he nonetheless adhered to the states' rights view that only the governor had the power to call out the state militia, not the U.S. President. Near the end of the war, during the Hartford Convention, Strong entered secret negotiations with the British which would have ceded them northern Maine in return for agreeing to a separate peace with Massachusetts. However the Treaty of Ghent ended the war before terms could be finalized.^[2]

Strong died in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is buried at the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton, Massachusetts.

In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Caleb Strong was named in his honor.

The town of Strong, Maine is named after Governor Strong.^[3] Windham, Ohio was also originally named in Strong's honor; the original name of this village was Strongsburg.

References

1. ^ Source for this paragraph: David L. Sterling. "Strong, Caleb"; American National Biography Online, Feb. 2000.
2. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: The Urbane Federalist (1913); revised edition (1969), pp. 362-70.
3. ^ "STRONG COMMUNITY PROFILE". www.epodunk.com. http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=2367. Retrieved 2007-04-21.

External links

• Caleb Strong at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Caleb Strong at Find a Grave
• Official Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Biography

United States Senate
Preceded by Office Created	United States Senator (Class 2) from Massachusetts March 4, 1789 – June 1, 1796 Served alongside: Tristram Dalton, George Cabot	Succeeded by Theodore Sedgwick
Political offices
Preceded by Governor's Council Acting Governor	Governor of Massachusetts May 30, 1800 – May 29, 1807	Succeeded by James Sullivan
Preceded by Elbridge Gerry	Governor of Massachusetts June, 1812–May 30, 1816	Succeeded by John Brooks