William McCoy (congressman)

For other people with the same name, see William McCoy (disambiguation).

William McCoy
Dean of the United States House of Representatives
In office
March 4, 1830 – March 3, 1833
Preceded byThomas Newton Jr.
Succeeded byLewis Williams
Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia
In office
March 4, 1811 – March 3, 1833
Preceded byJacob Swoope
Succeeded byWilliam McComas
Constituency4th district (1811–1823)
19th district (1823–1833)
Chairman of the Committee on Claims
In office
March 4, 1827 – March 3, 1829
Preceded byLewis Williams
Succeeded byElisha Whittlesey
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Pendleton County
In office
December 1798–1804
Serving with Jacob Conrad, Jacob Hull and Peter Hull
Preceded byPeter Hull
Succeeded byJohn Davis
Personal details
Born(1768-09-20)September 20, 1768
Fauquier County, Virginia Colony, British America
DiedAugust 19, 1835(1835-08-19) (aged 66)
Charlottesville, Virginia, US
Resting placeUniversity of Virginia Cemetery, Charlottesville, Virginia
PartyDemocratic-Republican (before 1825)
Other political
affiliations		Jacksonian (after 1825)

William McCoy (September 20, 1768 – August 19, 1835) was an American merchant and politician who was a U.S. Representative from Virginia from 1811 until 1833.

Early life

William McCoy was born near Warrenton in Fauquier County in the Colony of Virginia.

Career

He moved westward to Pendleton County, which the Virginia legislature had formed from western Rockingham County in 1789 (and part of which would form Highland County in 1845, after this man's death). William McCoy, Oliver McCoy and Jacob Conrad were three of the ten men who were the original trustees of Franklin (the Pendleton county seat), which received a legislative charter in 1794.[1] McCoy operated a store as well as bought a mill (which is now a historic site) three miles south of Franklin from Ulrich Conrad.[2] In the 1820 census, McCoy's household included 12 white people and nine slaves.[3]

Pendleton voters elected McCoy (and re-elected him) as one of their representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1798 to 1804.[4]

Congressman Jacob Swoope of Staunton (the Augusta county seat), the German-speaking local leader of the Federalist party, announced he would not seek re-election to Congress in 1810. Federalists named General Samuel Blackburn as their candidate, because of or despite his acquittal in 1809 of collecting illegal fees from litigants.[5] Despite Pendleton County being the least populous of the six counties in Virginia's 4th congressional district in 1810 (the others being Augusta, Hardy, Rockbridge, Rockingham, and Shenandoah),[6] McCoy ran for the seat and won. He was repeatedly re-elected to the United States House of Representatives. He initially ran as a Democratic-Republican, then as a Crawford Republican and finally as a Jacksonian. Thus he served from 1811 to 1833, with district number changing to Virginia's 19th congressional district in 1822 due redistricting following the censuses of 1820. During the War of 1812, McCoy wrote President James Madison concerning two applications for commissions as military officers.[7] McCoy served as chairman of the Committee on Claims from 1827 to 1829.[8]

McCoy also served as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830, one of four men from a state senatorial district that included Augusta, Rockbridge and Pendleton Counties.[9] That convention succeeded in getting more legislative seats for western Virginia, but also wrote slavery into the state constitution. That district's other representatives were Briscoe G. Baldwin, Chapman Johnson and fellow Congressman Samuel McD Moore.[10] In that convention, McCoy served on the Committee of the Executive Department.[11] Although in the rest of the state voters adopted the constitution 24,672 to 7198, his constituents in Pendleton County voted against it 8365 votes to 1383, dissatisfied with the continued voting dominance of planters west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, after which Virginia legislators reduced Pendleton County from two to a single representative in the Virginia House of Delegates.[12]

Personal life

He married Elizabeth Harrison (1760-1804), and outlived both their son John (1803-1823) and their daughter Caroline (1804-1830). Before her death, Caroline had married another William McCoy, who had been assisting his father-in-law with the store, as well as raising their son (also William McCoy). Hence this man in his last will and testament, executed in Washington on April 30, 1832, provided that his late son-in-law would become his executor, and other property would be inherited by his grandson, after making financial provision to Mrs. Dyer, who had helped raise his children and that grandchild.[13]

Death

William McCoy died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1835[14] and was interred in the University of Virginia Cemetery. His mill was inherited by his nephew, also William McCoy (who died in 1864, hence some confusion).

Electoral history

  • 1811; McCoy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with 52.64% of the vote, defeating Federalist Samuel Blackburn.
  • 1813; McCoy was re-elected unopposed.
  • 1815; McCoy was re-elected with 51.01% of the vote, defeating Federalist Robert Porterfield.
  • 1817; McCoy was re-elected unopposed.
  • 1819; McCoy was re-elected unopposed.
  • 1821; McCoy was re-elected unopposed.

References

  1. ^ Oren F. Morton, A History of Pendleton County, West Virginia (1910 reprinted 1974 in Baltimore by Regional Publishing Company) p. 131
  2. ^ Ken Sullivan (ed.)West Virginia Encyclopedia (ISBN 0-9778498-0-5) p. 464
  3. ^ 1820 U.S. Federal Census for Pendleton County, Virginia p. 8 of 16
  4. ^ Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978( Richmond: Virginia State Library 213, 217, 221, 224, 229, 233
  5. ^ Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia From 1726 to 1871 (2nd ed.) (1902) (reprinted C.J. Carrier Company Harrisonburg 1979) p.183
  6. ^ Oren Frederic Morton, A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia (1810) (reprinted by Regional Publishing Company of Baltimore in 1974) p. 93 mistakenly naming it as the 11th instead of the 4th
  7. ^ https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/03-04-02-0404
  8. ^ Congressional Biographical Directory, "William McCoy"
  9. ^ Morton p. 100
  10. ^ Leonard p.353
  11. ^ Pulliam 1901, p. 68, 79
  12. ^ Morton p. 100, also noting that even after the 1850 Constitution voters east of the Blue Ridge only had 19 of 32 state senators, and 47 of 152 members of the Virginia House of Delegates after 1851 were allocated to what became West Virginia after the Civil War
  13. ^ will available online, Pendleton County Will Book 2-4 pp.448-449 of 589
  14. ^ A History of Franklin: The County-seat of Pendleton County, West Virginia

Bibliography

  • "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - Present". bioguide.congress.gov. United States Congress. Archived from the original on April 23, 2010. Retrieved January 1, 2016.
  • Pulliam, David Loyd (1901). The Constitutional Conventions of Virginia from the foundation of the Commonwealth to the present time. John T. West, Richmond. ISBN 978-1-2879-2059-5. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)


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