US Congressman, US Senator, Entrepreneur. He was a United States Representative from the State of Massachusetts. He was born one of three children to Captain Nathaniel Silsbee (1748-1791), and his wife Sarah Becket Silsbee (1750-1832), in Salem, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1773. He was educated locally and attended private schools, before going to sea where he became a sea captain, ship owner, and merchant. He then took an interest in politics and served in several local offices in both Salem, Massachusetts, and Boston, Massachusetts. He was also a Member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1810. He then decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected to succeed the outgoing United States Representative Timothy Pickering (1745-1829), on March 4, 1817. A Member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he then served Massachusett's 2nd District (Fifteenth Congress and Sixteenth Congress), in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1821. He was originally elected in 1816, and reelected in 1818. He was not a Candidate for nomination for reelection in 1820. Following his term in the United States Congress, he was succeeded in office by the incoming United States Representative Gideon Barstow (1783-1852), on March 4, 1821. He then was elected to the Massachusetts State House of Representatives serving a term in 1821. He also served as a Member of the Massachusetts State Senate from 1823 to 1825, as Presidential Elector of the Massachusetts State Senate in 1824, and as President of the Massachusetts State Senate from 1823 to 1826. He had been preceded as President of the Massachusetts State Senate by the outgoing John Phillips (1770-1826), the first mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, from 1822 to 1823, and the father of abolitionist Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), and was succeeded by the incoming John Mills (1787-1862), a lawyer, and politician who had also served as Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts, as the President of the Massachusetts Senate, and as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was then chosen to replace United States Senator James Lloyd (1769-1831), who had resigned from his seat causing a vacancy in the United States Senate due to his continuous ill health on May 23, 1826. He was elected to that seat in the United States Senate through a special election shortly thereafter and served in that position from May 31, 1826, until he was reelected in 1829. He served his term in its full capacity until March 3, 1835, as Class 2, alongside United States Senator and Representative Elijah Hunt Mills (1776-1829), and United States Senator and the great Orator Daniel Webster (1782-1852). While serving his term in the United States Senate he also served as Chairman of the Committee on Commerce representing the Twenty-Third Congress. Following his term in the United States Senate, he declined to be a Candidate for reelection and was replaced in office by the incoming United States Senator John Davis (1787-1854), on March 4, 1835. After leaving the United States Senate, he resumed his mercantile pursuits in Salem, Massachusetts. He was lastly a Whig Party Presidential Elector in 1836. He passed away in Salem, Massachusetts, on July 14, 1850, at the age of 77, and he was buried in the family plot in Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. He was married to Mary Crowninshield Silsbee (1778-1835), in Salem, Massachusetts, on December 12, 1802, with whom he had three children, Nathaniel Silsbee (1804-1881), Mary Crowninshield Silsbee Sparks (1809-1887), and Georgiana Crowninshield Silsbee Saltonstall (1824-1901). His wife Mary passed away in Salem, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1835, at the age of 56, and she is buried in the family plot in Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. His son Nathaniel Silsbee Jr. went onto become a successful politician in his own right, having served as a Member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives in 1830, and as the Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts from 1849 to 1851, and again from 1858 to 1860. His son, Nathaniel Silsbee Jr. passed away from kidney disease in Milton, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1881, at the age of 76, and he too was buried in the family plot in Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusett. His son-in-law was Jared Sparks (1789-1866), the American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister, and who served as President of Harvard College from 1849 to 1853. The town of Silsbee, Texas, is named for Nathaniel Silsbee Sr. The Nathaniel Silsbee Sr. House is a historic building in Salem, Massachusetts, which is maintained by the Knights of Columbus.