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Senate Years of Service: 1866-1869; 1871-1877 Party: Republican; Republican
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FRELINGHUYSEN, Frederick Theodore, (nephew and adopted son of Theodore Frelinghuysen, great-nephew of Frederick Frelinghuysen, uncle of Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, great-grandfather of Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen, Jr.; great-great-grandfather of Rodney P. Frelinghuysen),
a Senator from New Jersey; born in Millstone, N.J., August 4, 1817; graduated
from Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N.J., in 1836; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1839 and
commenced practice in Newark, N.J.; city attorney of Newark in 1849; member of the city council
1850; trustee of Rutgers College 1851-1885; member of the peace convention of 1861 held in
Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; attorney general of
New Jersey 1861-1866; appointed and subsequently elected as a Republican to the United States
Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Wright and served from November 12,
1866, to March 3, 1869; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1868; appointed United States
Minister to England by President Ulysses Grant in July 1870; confirmed but declined the
appointment; again elected to the United States Senate as a Republican and served from March 4,
1871, to March 3, 1877; appointed a member of the Electoral Commission in 1877 to decide the
contests in various States in the presidential election of 1876; unsuccessful candidate for reelection;
chairman, Committee on Agriculture (Forty-second through Forty-fourth Congresses); resumed the
practice of law in Newark, N.J.; appointed Secretary of State by President Chester Arthur
1881-1885; died in Newark, N.J., May 20, 1885; interment in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Rollins, John William. Frederick Theodore
Frelinghuysen, 1817-1885: The Politics and Diplomacy of Stewardship. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1974; Sayles, Stephen. The Romero-Frelinghuysen Convention:
A Milestone in Border Relations. New Mexico Historical Review 51 (October
1976): 295-311.
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