William Anderson (Pennsylvania politician)

For other people of a similar name, see William Anderson.

William Anderson (1762 – December 16, 1829) was an American politician who served as a Democratic-Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district from 1809 to 1815 and from 1817 to 1819.

Major William Anderson gravestone in Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church burial ground in Chester, Pennsylvania

William Anderson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 1st district
In office 1817–1819
In office 1809–1815
Personal details
Born	1762 (1762) Accomack County, Virginia Colony, British America
Died	December 16, 1829(1829-12-16) (aged 66–67) Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Old St. Paul's Church Cemetery, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican

Early life and military service

William Anderson was born in Accomack County in the Colony of Virginia in 1762. During the Revolutionary War, he joined the Continental Army at the age of fifteen and served until the end of the war. He was a major on the staff of General Lafayette and distinguished himself at Germantown and Yorktown.

He was married to Elizabeth Dixon. In 1796, Anderson became engaged in the hotel business through the purchase of the Columbia House in Chester, Pennsylvania.^[1]

Political career

He served as Delaware County auditor in 1804 and county director of the poor in 1805.^[2] He was a Jeffersonian democrat and held many public offices.

Anderson was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Congresses. He was elected to the Fifteenth Congress. He was appointed an associate judge of the county court on January 5, 1826, and resigned in 1828 to become an inspector of customs in Philadelphia. He served until his death in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1829 and was interred in Old St. Paul's Church Cemetery.^[3]

Slaveholding

Under Pennsylvania gradual abolition law, enslavers had six months to register the children of women they held in bondage. On July 2, 1806, Anderson registered a nineteen-week-old "male mulatto bastard child" named Francis as his property for twenty-eight years with the Delaware County clerk of courts.^[4][5] This registration reveals that Anderson owned Francis' mother, whom he held in either lifetime or term slavery.