John BAILEY, Congress, MA (1786-1835)

BAILEY, John, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in 1786 in that part of Stoughton, Norfolk County, Mass.; which in 1797 was set apart and named Canton; was graduated from Brown University, Providence, R.I., in 1807; tutor and librarian at Providence, R.I., 1807-1814; member of the Massachusetts state house of representatives, 1814-1817; clerk in the Department of State in Washington, D.C., 1817-1823; presented credentials as a Member-elect to the Eighteenth Congress, but the election was contested on the ground that he was not a resident of the district he purported to represent, and by resolution of March 18, 1824, the House declared he was not entitled to the seat; returned to Canton, Mass., and was subsequently elected as an Adams-Clay Republican to fill the vacancy thus caused in this Congress; reelected as an Adams to the Nineteenth and Twentieth, and as an Anti-Jacksonian in the Twenty-first Congresses (December 13, 1824-March 3, 1831); chair, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State (Nineteenth Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1830; member of the State senate, 1831-1834; unsuccessful Anti-Masonic candidate for Governor in 1834; died in Dorchester, Mass., June 26, 1835; interment in Oak Grove Cemetery.

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