Daniel Hubbard family papers

Daniel Hubbard: merchant in New York City, associated in business with his brother, David Greene Hubbard; they appear to have dealt in food and dry goods imported from Europe and Asia.

Timothy Pitkin, the sixth child and youngest son of the Rev. Timothy Pitkin (Yale 1747), of Farmington, Connecticut, was born in Farmington on January 21, 1766. He was prepared for College under his father and his brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Nathan Perkins, of West Hartford. His scholarship was excellent, and he was selected to give the Latin Salutatory Oration at graduation.

He decided at an early age upon the profession of the law, and after teaching for a year in the academy at Plain-field, Connecticut, he studied with the Hon. Oliver Ellsworth, of Windsor, and with Major William Judd (Yale 1763), of Farmington, and was admitted to the bar of Hartford County in 1788.

In May, 1790, at the age of 24, he was chosen a Representative in the General Assembly, and served also at twenty-two more sessions between that date and 1805. For the last three years of his service he was Speaker of the House.

In 1805 he was elected a Representative in Congress as a Federalist, and continued in that office until 1819, when in consequence of a violent upheaval in Connecticut politics, he and his colleagues were superseded. During this period he published the first and second editions of his valuable Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States. Of the second edition two hundred and fifty copies were taken by Congress for the use of the Government. He was a member of the Convention which framed the new State Constitution in 1818.

After leaving Congress he was engaged in his professional pursuits, and in literary work. He was also at once re-elected to the Connecticut Legislature and retained his post for twelve years, until 1830. During this period his Political and Civil History of the United States appeared, in recognition of which Yale gave him in 1829 the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. In 1826 he proposed to set up a Law School in Farmington, but the experiment was not successful. In 1830 he retired from all public business, and soon after relinquished his professional pursuits, devoting his time to a careful revision of his private papers and to historical composition.

In 1840 he gave up the cares of housekeeping, and thenceforwards divided his time between his second daughter, the wife of Judge Hiram Denio, of Utica, and his youngest son. He died at his son's house in New Haven, on December 18, 1847, aged nearly 82 years, and was buried here.

He married, on June 6, 1801, Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Bela Hubbard (Yale 1758), of New Haven, who died at the residence of her youngest and only surviving son, in Albany, New York, on October 17, 1858, aged nearly 81 years.

Their children were three daughters and three sons. The youngest son was graduated at Yale in 1836, and the eldest at West Point Military Academy in 1826.

A photograph of his portrait is given in the Pitkin Genealogy.

He published:

1. Motion [in Congress, concerning the amount of duties on imports and tonnage, 1789-1810], December 23d, 1811. Washington City, 1811. 8°, pp. 4. [Brit. Mus. U.S.

2. Speech on the Loan Bill, delivered in the House of Representatives, February 10th, 1814. In Committee of the Whole. On the Question to fill the Blank in the Bill with Twenty-five Millions of Dollars. Alexandria, 1814. 8°, pp. 19./ [A. A. S. B. Ath. Harv. M H. S. N. Y. H. S. R. I. Hist. Soc. U. S. Y. C.

* 3. A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America: its connection with Agriculture and Manufacturers: and an account of the Public Debts, Revenues, and Expenditures of the United States … Hartford, 1816. 8°, pp, xii, 407, xx./ [A. A. S. B. Ath. B. Publ. Brit. Mus. Harv. M. H. S. N.Y. Soc. Libr. U.S. Y. C.

The same. 2d edition. New-York, 1817. 8°, pp. xii, 445, viii./ [B. Ath. B. Publ. Bowdoin Coll. Harv. N. Y. H. S.

The same. 3d edition. New Haven, 1835. 8°, pp. xvi, 600./ [A. A. S. B. Ath. B. Publ. Brit. Mus. Brown Univ. Harv. M. H. S. N. Y. H. S. R. I Hist. Soc. U. S. Y. C.

Still held in esteem as a valuable compilation.

* 4. A Political and Civil History of the United States of America, from the year 1763 to the close of the administration of President Washington, in March, 1797… New Haven, 1828. 2 vols. 8°, PP 528; 539./ [A. A. S. A. C. B. Ath. B. Publ. Bowdoin Coll. Brit. Mus. Brown Univ. Harv. M. H. S. N. Y. H. S. N. Y. Publ. N. Y. Soc. Libr. U. S. Y. C.

A continuation of this valuable work was prepared by the author in his last years, but remains unpublished.

He contributed to the North American Review for January, 1827, a review of Theodore Lyman's Diplomacy of the United States, pp. 92-110. He is also said to have been a contributor to the American Quarterly Review.

AUTHORITIES: Farmington Magazine, ii, 6-8. Pitkin Family, 27, 50-51. Pres. Memorial Biographies of the N. E. Stiles, Literary Diary, iii, 184, 475. Hist. Geneal. Society, i, 76-85. F.B. Dexter, Yale Biographies and Annals, Class of 1785, pages 437-439. One Thousand Years of Hubbard History, by Harlan Page Hubbard, 1895, 328.

For a chart outlining the genealogical relations of the Hubbard family, please consult the Genealogical Chart.