Theodore Dwight (1764-1846) - Find a Grave Memorial

US Congressman, Journalist. He represented Connecticut's 6th District as a Federalist in the Ninth Congress and served for four months, from December 1806 to March 1807. A cousin of Aaron Burr, Dwight was born in Northampton, Massachusetts and became an attorney in Hartford, Connecticut in 1791. For several years he pursued dual careers in the legal profession and in journalism, serving as editor of the Hartford Courant and Connecticut Mirror, while also dabbling in politics. He was elected to the US House of Representatives to complete the term of John Cotton Smith, who had resigned, and declined to run for a full term. Instead he served as a member of the Connecticut State Council (1809 to 1815) and as Secretary of the 1814 Hartford Convention. In 1817 Dwight moved to New York City and established the New York Daily Advertiser, which he built into a major newspaper; it was the first American periodical to be printed with a steam-powered cylinder press (1825), capable of turning out 2000 issues an hour. New York's Great Fire of December 1835 destroyed the Advertiser's offices and presses, and after a half-hearted attempt to revive the paper Dwight retired to Hartford the following year. His last three years were spent in Manhattan, where he died.

Bio by: Bobb Edwards