David Thomas (New York politician)

See David Thomas for similarly named people

David Thomas in 1807, when he was a Congressman. Engraving by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin.

David Thomas (June 11, 1762 Pelham, Hampshire County, Massachusetts – November 27, 1831 Providence, Rhode Island) was an American politician.

Life

Thomas served as a volunteer in 1777, and joined the Fifth Massachusetts Regiment as a corporal in 1781, later becoming a sergeant in the Third Massachusetts Regiment. He moved to Salem, New York, in 1784, where he had a tavern for several years. He was commissioned a captain in the New York State Militia in 1786 and rose to the rank of major general of the northern division of the militia in 1805.

He was a member from Washington and Clinton counties of the New York State Assembly in 1794, and from Washington County from 1798 to 1800, a supervisor of the Town of Salem from 1797 to 1800, and was justice of the peace from 1798 to 1801, in 1804 and 1811.

Thomas was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th United States Congresses, and served from March 4, 1801, to May 1, 1808, when he resigned.

He was New York State Treasurer from February 5, 1808, to February 8, 1810, and again from February 18, 1812, to February 10, 1813. Afterwards he moved to Providence, R.I., where he died in 1831. He was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Salem, N.Y.

Sources

• David Thomas at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Political Graveyard
• The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 35 and 309; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858) (Google Books)