|
LYON, Matthew, (father of Chittenden Lyon and great-grandfather of William Peters Hepburn),
a Representative from Vermont and from Kentucky; born near Dublin, County
Wicklow, Ireland, July 14, 1749; attended school in Dublin; began to learn the trade of printer in
1763; immigrated to the United States in 1765; was landed as a redemptioner and worked on a farm
in Woodbury, Conn., where he continued his education; moved to Wallingford, Vt. (then known as the
New Hampshire Grants), in 1774 and organized a company of militia; served as adjutant in Colonel
Warners regiment in Canada in 1775; commissioned second lieutenant in the regiment known as the
Green Mountain Boys in July 1776; moved to Arlington, Vt., in 1777; resigned from the Army in
1778; member of the State house of representatives 1779-1783; founded the town of Fair Haven,
Vt., in 1783; was a member of the State house of representatives for ten years during the period
1783-1796; built and operated various kinds of mills, including one for the manufacture of paper;
established a printing office in 1793 and published the Farmers Library, afterward the Fair Haven
Gazette; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Second and Third Congresses; unsuccessfully
contested the election of Israel Smith to the Fourth Congress; elected as a Republican to the Fifth and
Sixth Congresses (March 4, 1797-March 3, 1801); was not a candidate for renomination in 1800;
moved to Kentucky in 1801 and settled in Caldwell (now Lyon) County; member of the house of
representatives of Kentucky in 1802; elected to the Eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses
(March 4, 1803-March 3, 1811); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1810 to the Twelfth
Congress; was appointed United States factor to the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas Territory in 1820;
unsuccessfully contested the election of James W. Bates as a Delegate from Arkansas Territory to the
Seventeenth Congress; died in Spadra Bluff, Ark., August 1, 1822; interment in Spadra Bluff
Cemetery; reinterment in Eddyville Cemetery, Eddyville, Caldwell (now Lyon) County, Ky., in 1833.
BibliographyAustin, Aleine. Matthew Lyon: New Man of
the Democratic Revolution, 1749-1822. University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1981; Montagno, George L. Matthew Lyon, Radical Jeffersonian, 1796-1801: A Case Study
in Partisan Politics. Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1954.
|