LANGDON, JOHN (1 741-1819), American statesman, was born in Portsmouth, N.H., on June 25, 1741. After an appren ticeship in a counting-house, he led a sea-faring life for several years, and became a shipowner and merchant. In Dec. 1774 as a militia captain he assisted in the capture of Ft. William and Mary at New Castle, N.H., one of the first overt acts of the American colonists against the property of the Crown. He was elected to the last royal assembly of New Hampshire and then to the sec ond Continental Congress in 1775, but he resigned and in June, 1776, became Congress's agent of prizes in New Hampshire, and in 1778 continental (naval) agent of Congress in this State, where he supervised the building of John Paul Jones's "Ranger," and other vessels. He was a judge of the New Hampshire court of common pleas in 1776-77, a member (and speaker) of the New Hampshire house of representatives from 1776 until 1782, a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1778 and of the State senate in 1784-85, and in 1783-84 was again a member of Congress. He
contributed largely to raise troops in 1777 to meet Burgoyne; and he served as a captain at Bennington and at Saratoga. He was president of New Hampshire in 1785-86 and in 1788-89; a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787; a member of the State convention which ratified the Federal Consti tution for New Hampshire; a member of the U.S. Senate in 1789 1801, and its president pro-tem. during the first Congress and the second session of the second Congress; a member of the New Hampshire house of representatives in 1801-05 and its speaker in 1803-05; and governor of the State in 1805-09 and in 1810-12. He refused the naval portfolio in Jefferson's cabinet, and received nine electoral votes for the vice-presidency in 1808. He died in Portsmouth on Sept. 18, 1819.
Alfred Langdon Elwyn has edited Letters by Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Others, Written During and After the Revolution; to John Langdon of New Hampshire (Philadelphia, 1880).