Bidwell family.

Thomas Bidwell Orton, 1844-1867: soldier with the 28th regiment of the Connecticut Volunteers and the 150th regiment of the Ohio National Guard.

BARNABAS BIDWELL

Barnabas Bidwell was born in Tyringham (now Monterey), Massachusetts on August 23, 1763. He was the son of Jemima Devotion Bidwell and the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, first pastor of the Congregational Church in Tyringham.

As a senior at Yale, Bidwell wrote The Mercenary Match, a five-act tragedy in blank verse. Graduating in the class of 1785, Bidwell taught in a New Haven school for young women until 1787, when he accepted a tutorship at Yale. In 1790 he left his position and turned his attention to the study of law. He began a practice in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was appointed Treasurer of Berkshire County in 1791, a position he held for nineteen years. Mary Gray of Stockbridge became his wife in 1793. His daughter Sarah Gray was born in 1796, his son Marshall Spring in 1799.

Bidwell began his career as a Federalist, but, casting his lot with Jefferson, he changed his affiliation to the Republican party. From 1801 to 1805 Bidwell served as a state senator, and in 1805 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served on committees concerned with the purchase of Florida from Spain.

During the discussion of a bill to end the African slave trade (1806), a section of the bill was reported to the House, favored by the proslavery forces, under which individuals imported as slaves would be forfeited to the U.S. government. As forfeited property, they could be bought and sold by the government to augment the U.S. Treasury. In the lengthy and bitter debate which ensued, Bidwell was an outspoken and active opponent of the measure.

In 1807 Barnabas Bidwell was appointed attorney general of Massachusetts. While serving in Boston and in Washington from 1801 to 1810, Bidwell was also, albeit nominally, the Berkshire County Treasurer. In 1810, when Bidwell was being considered by Madison for an appointment to the Supreme Court, a large deficit was discovered in the treasurer's accounts. The exact nature of the sum is in question; it was reported at the time to be about $10,000, although it may in fact have been considerably lower.

Bidwell left the country for Canada to avoid a trial in the politically heated atmosphere. Over a period of years, he did, however, repay to the satisfaction of the Massachusetts courts the funds owed the County of Berkshire.

Bidwell and his children (Mrs. Bidwell had died in 1808) settled first in Bath, Ontario, where he established a school, and later in Kingston. In 1821 he was elected to the House of Assembly as an out-spoken Reform party member from the United Counties of Lennox and Addington. He was excluded from the House, however, on the grounds that he was an alien, although no such law existed. After Bidwell's exclusion and his son's repeated efforts contesting the action (See: Series II, "Correspondence Regarding Marshall Spring Bidwell"), an act was passed which rendered him ineligible by forbidding anyone who had held public office in the U. S. to sit in the House of Assembly of Canada. The act was later repealed, but Barnabas Bidwell's entry into Canadian politics had been arrested. As an alien, Bidwell was likewise unable to practice law in the courts, but it appears that he did give office consultations and assisted his son in his legal career.

Barnabas Bidwell died on July 27, 1833, at the age of seventy.

MARSHALL SPRING BIDWELL

Born February 16, 1799, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Spring Bidwell was the son of Barnabas Bidwell and Mary Gray Bidwell. In 1808, two weeks before the boy's ninth birthday, his mother died. Several years later his father moved to Canada (due to events described in the life of Barnabas Bidwell). In 1812 Marshall and his sister joined him at Bath and later moved to Kingston. Marshall studied law in the latter city and was admitted to the bar of Upper Canada in 1821.

That same year Barnabas Bidwell was elected to the House of Assembly as a Reform party member from the United Counties of Lennox and Addington. A controversy arose when he was disqualified as an alien. Marshall S. Bidwell decided to become a candidate for the same seat and met with strong opposition from the Government or Conservative party. After three years of vain efforts to secure the seat, he became a member of the House in 1824. In the interim the Reform party had managed to pass an act which allowed an alien to serve in the House after seven years of residence in Upper Canada.

For the next eleven years Bidwell served in the House as the representative from Lennox and Addington. Elected Speaker of the House in 1829 and 1835, Bidwell was recognized as an able attorney and as one of the leaders of the Reform party with William Lyon MacKenzie. Bidwell opposed the law of primogeniture and also sought official recognition for the less prominent churches in Upper Canada. One of Bidwell's convictions was that government officials should be responsible to and representatives of the people. He advocated reform in the areas of jury selection and of control of public resources. In the 1836 general election, Bidwell lost his seat in the House.

During this period of Canadian history there was great bitterness and hostility between the Government and the Reform parties and a growing dissatisfaction amid the general populace. In this atmosphere of antagonism, the British Government ordered Sir Francis Bond Head, who had assumed the post of lieutenant governor of Upper Canada in 1836, to appoint Marshall S. Bidwell to the first vacancy to appear on the Court of King's Bench. Head, a staunch Tory, refused to do so.

In December of 1837, the more radical wing of the Reform party under William Lyon MacKenzie staged an open rebellion which was quickly suppressed. Having declared his withdrawal from public life, Bidwell declined an invitation to attend a proposed provincial convention in August and took no part in the December uprising. Sir Francis Bond Head nevertheless insisted that Bidwell leave the Province of Upper Canada forever.

Marshall Spring Bidwell left Canada in December, 1837, and settled in New York City. Admitted readily to the New York bar, he built up a strong legal practice. A legal partnership begun in 1835 between Marshall S. Bidwell and George Strong lasted until the latter's death in 1855. Although well versed in constitutional and commercial law, Bidwell's specialty was the law of real property, i.e., real estate, trusts and the construction of wills.

In 1842, with the return of the Reform party to power, Bidwell was invited to return to Canada and was offered a seat on the Court of Queen's Bench. He declined, preferring to remain in New York City.

Bidwell was active in the New York Historical Society and served as a director of the American Bible Society. In addition, he was president of the N. Y. Bank of Savings.

Marshall Spring Bidwell died in New York City on October 24, 1872. He was survived by a son, Marshall Spring Bidwell, Jr., and two daughters, Mary Sabra Bidwell and Clara Emily Bidwell. His wife, Clara Willcox Bidwell, died in 1862.

From the guide to the Bidwell family papers, 1750-1952, 1782-1915, (Manuscripts and Archives)