PICKERING, Timothy, American states man; b. Salem, Mass., 17 July 1745; d. there, 29 Jan. 1829. He was graduated at Harvard in 1763, was admitted to the bar, became register of deeds for Salem County and displayed so great interest in military matters that he was commissioned lieutenant of militia in 1766 and became colonel in 1775. He was a prominent and active patriot, drew up the pamphlet called 'State of the Rights of the Colonists' in 1773, and drafted the Salem protest against the Bos ton Port Bill. In 1775 he wrote 'An Easy Plan of Discipline for the Militia,' an able manual much used in Massachusetts and for the whole Continental army; and in December 1776 joined the Revolutionary army, meeting Washington in February 1777 and becoming adjutant-general. He fought at Brandywine and Germantown, was quartermaster-general, general 1780-85, and was present at Yorktown. At the close of the war he settled in the Wyoming Valley, where he organized Luzerne County. Pickering concluded a treaty with the Six Nations in 1791, was appointed Postmaster General in that year and Secretary of War in 1795, founded the United States Military Acad emy at West Point, and did much for the up building of the navy. He was Secretary of
State from December 1795 to May 1800, and after his retirement lived in some destitution on his property in Pennsylvania, whence he re turned to Massachusetts. In 1803 he was elected United States senator and in that ca pacity as in his office of Secretary of State roused popular hatred by his extreme Federalist position. From 1812 to 1814 he was again out of public life, but was elected to Congress in the latter year and to the Massachusetts Execu tive Council in 1817. In the second war with England he was a leader of the New England opposition and favored the Hartford Conven tion (q.v.). Consult the biography by Octavius Pickering, his son, and C. W. Upham (1867-73).