Jonah SANFORD, Congress, NY (1790-1867)

SANFORD, Jonah, (great-grandfather of Rollin Brewster Sanford), a Representative from New York; born in Cornwall, Vt., November 30, 1790; attended the district schools; moved to Hopkinton, N.Y., in 1811; enlisted as a volunteer and participated in the battle at Plattsburg, September 11, 1814; appointed justice of the peace in 1818 and served for twenty-two years; studied law; was admitted to the bar and practiced in Franklin County; supervisor of Hopkinton 1823-1826; commissioned a captain of Volunteer Cavalry in 1827; promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1828, colonel in 1831, and brigadier general of State militia in 1832 and 1833; member of the State assembly in 1829 and 1830; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Silas Wright, Jr., and served from November 3, 1830, to March 3, 1831; judge of the court of common pleas 1831-1837; delegate to the convention to revise the State constitution in 1846; became a Republican upon the formation of that party in 1856; raised a regiment during the Civil War and was elected its colonel; died in Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, N.Y., on December 25, 1867; interment in Hopkinton Cemetery.

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