Abner LACOCK, Congress, PA (1770-1837)

LACOCK, Abner, a Representative and a Senator from Pennsylvania; born near Alexandria, Va., July 9, 1770; moved with his parents to Washington County, Pa., as a youth; moved to Beaver (then in Allegheny County), Pa., in 1796; justice of the peace in 1796; innkeeper; member, State legislature 1801-1803; associate judge of the Beaver County Court 1803-1804; member, State legislature 1804-1808; member of the Pennsylvania Militia and served as brigadier general in 1807; member, State senate 1808-1810; elected as a Democratic Republican to the Twelfth Congress and served from March 4, 1811, until March 3, 1813; reelected to the Thirteenth Congress but resigned before it commenced, having been elected Senator; elected to the United States Senate as a Democratic Republican and served from March 4, 1813, to March 3, 1819; chairman, Committee on Pensions (Fifteenth Congress); appointed a State commissioner to survey routes for canals and railways in Pennsylvania in 1825; member, State legislature 1832-1835; appointed to survey and construct the Pennsylvania & Ohio Canal in 1836,; died near Freedom, Pa., April 12, 1837; interment in Lacock Cemetery, Rochester, Pa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Houtz, Harry. “Abner Lacock, Beaver County’s Exponent of the American System.” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 22 (September 1939): 177-87; Swank, James M. “General Abner Lacock.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 4 (1880): 202-08.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present