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Theodore Sedgwick
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[ This description is from the project: Revolutionary-era Art and Artifacts ]
This portrait of Theodore Sedgwick (1746-1813) was painted by Ezra Ames (1768-1836) sometime before 1836, after the original painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1808.
Theodore Sedgwick was born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1746, the son of Benjamin and Ann (Thompson) Sedgwick. He graduated from Yale in 1765, was admitted to the bar in 1766 and married three times; in 1768 to Eliza Mason, who died childless in 1771; in 1774 to Pamela Dwight, whose 10 children included Catharine Maria Sedgwick; and in 1808 to Penelope Russell, daughter of Dr. Charles Russell. Sedgwick was a politician and a leading lawyer in Western Massachusetts. In a celebrated case he successfully defended and helped to free Elizabeth Freeman ("Mumbet"), whose miniature portrait was painted by one of his daughters. He served as a member of the Continental Congress, as a United States congressman and senator, and was appointed for life to the Massachusetts supreme judicial court in 1802. He died in Boston in 1813.