Elijah Boardman

Elijah Boardman (March 7, 1760 – August 18, 1823) was an American politician who served as a senator from Connecticut. Born to a noted and politically connected Connecticut family, he served in the Connecticut militia before becoming a noted merchant and businessman. Becoming involved in property and land ownership in Connecticut and Ohio, he founded the towns of Boardman and Medina in Ohio. His involvement in politics also increased, and he gradually rose through the ranks of the local, and then national government, being elected by the Connecticut legislature to the United States Senate. He served as Senator from Connecticut until his death in Ohio.

Biography

Early life Boardman, was born in New Milford in Connecticut, the third of four children for Deacon Sherman Boardman (1728–1814) and Sarah Bostwick Boardman (1730–1818). His father, son of the first minister of the Congregational Church, was a "prosperous farmer", well educated and well versed in local politics – he was 21 times elected as a member of the General Assembly of Connecticut – and was familiar with "civil and military concerns of the town." he obtained passage on a wagon back to New York, where he was discovered in poor health by a friend of his father, who sent word home for Boardman to be collected. Meanwhile, Boardman obtained a discharge from the army. In 1789, he was the subject of a portrait by Ralph Earl, which "portrayed the richly dressed dry goods merchant... in his store in New Milford... through the open door, bolts of textiles tell the viewer how Boardman earned a living." Earl's most "accomplished" and successful series of paintings were of the Boardman family. for whom he would build '', which still stands in New Milford. Together with his brothers, Boardman had thus became the owner of a "considerable" amount of real estate, among the post-Revolutionary War landed gentry "among the town's highest taxpayers."

Politics Boardman's initial ventures into politics are recorded in a letter to then-President Thomas Jefferson on June 18, 1801. He included a sermon of the Rev. Stanley Griswold, of the New Milford church, which discussed the new president as "an example of how evil could be overcome by good." Jefferson subsequently replied with a detailed critique of the sermon.

Boardman became a member of the State House of Representatives for the period 1803–05 and again in 1816, before becoming a member of the State's upper house between 1817 and 1819, and a member of the State Senate between 1819 and 1821. On March 4, 1821, he was elected to the US Senate while living in Litchfield, Connecticut. He is listed by the Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 as having been present at Senate proceedings on December 3, 1821, in Washington DC in the company of Class-3 Connecticut senator James Lanman.

Later life and death

Boardman served in the Senate until his death during a visit to his son,