FISH, Hamilton, Congress, NY (1808-1893)

Senate Years of Service: 1851-1855; 1855-1857
Party: Whig; Opposition

FISH, Hamilton, (father of Hamilton Fish [1849-1936], grandfather of Hamilton Fish [1888-1991], and great-grandfather of Hamilton Fish, Jr. [1926-1996]), a Representative and a Senator from New York; born in New York City August 3, 1808; attended Doctor Bancel’s French School, New York City; graduated from Columbia College, New York City, in 1827; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1830 and practiced in New York City; commissioner of deeds for the city and county of New York 1832-1833; elected as a Whig to the Twenty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1845); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-ninth Congress; resumed the practice of law; lieutenant governor of New York 1848-1849; Governor of New York 1849-1850; elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1851, to March 3, 1857; was not a candidate for reelection; president general of the Society of the Cincinnati from 1854 until his death; appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as one of the board of commissioners for the relief and exchange of Union prisoners of war in the South; president of the New-York Historical Society 1867-1869; appointed by President Ulysses Grant as Secretary of State 1869-1877; resumed the practice of law and managed his large real estate holdings in New York City; died in Garrison, N.Y., September 7, 1893; interment in the cemetery of St. Philip’s Church-in-the-Highlands, Garrison, N.Y.

Bibliography Dictionary of American Biography ; Chapin, James B. “Hamilton Fish and American Expansion.” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1971; Nevins, Allan. Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration . New York: F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1957.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present