Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Dawson, Hon John Littleton February 7, 1813 - September 18, 1870
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Marta Burns marta43@juno.com September 20, 2024, 3:40 pm

Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, page 158
Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley

    Hon John Littleton Dawson was the son of George Dawson and Mary Kennedy
Dawson, and was born at Uniontown, Fayette county, Penna, February 7, 1813.
    When quite young he removed to Brownsville which was his residence
during the greater part of his subsequent life.  He was educated in
Washington College, Penna, and immediately after being graduated from
that institution began to read law with his uncle, John Dawson at
Uniontown.  He was admitted to the Fayette county bar, September 9, 1835,
and immediately entered upon the active practice of the law.  He was a
good lawyer, an able counsellor and a brilliant pleader before a jury.  
    Having carefully studied the science of government and the great
political issues of Jackson's and Van Buren's administration, at an early
age he entered the political arena; his ample and comprehensive mind
grasped the bearings of the great public issues that divided the
political parties of the day.  Specially fitted by nature, observation and
study, no wonder that the young and rising democratic attorney soon
passed to a respectable position in the political affairs of Western
Pennsylvania.
    The first office he filled was that of deputy attorney general for
Fayette county.  His faithful and able discharge of the duties of this
office commended him as possessing unusual elements of successful leadership.  
    United with this he had a gift of eloquence which made his name a
fireside recollection in the homes of Western Pennsylvania.  President
Polk in 1845 appointed him United States district attorney for the
western district of Pennsylvania, and he held the office during the whole
of Polk's administration.  He discharged the duties of this important
office in a most satisfactory manner to the president and to the people
of the district.
    John L Dawson was not long in being recognized as one of the ablest and
most talented leaders of Pennsylvania democracy.  In 1848 he was put forth
as the democratic nominee for member of congress in the district composed
of Fayette, Washington, Greene and Somerset counties, but was defeated.
He was renominated in 1850 and was elected.  At the end of his second
term, he declined a renomination, but in 1862 allowed the use of his name
and was triumphantly elected, and re-elected in 1864, the last time from
the district composed of Fayette, Westmoreland and Indiana counties.  
    Mr Dawson signaled his entrance into congress and engaged the thoughts
of our people by is resurrection and re-introduction of the Homestead
bill, which had been previously introduced and defeated.  Originating and
adding several important provisions to this celebrated bill, he
eloquently and ably advocated it until it became a law of the land,
opening millions of homes upon the broad prairies of the West to actual
settlers, and wonderfully accelerating the progress of the country in her
many Western fields of wealth and promise.  This one act of his political
career entitles him to rank as an able statesman and a public benefactor.
    Mr Dawson married Miss Mary Clark of Brownsville, daughter of Robert
Clark, merchant of Brownsville.  Unto this union were born four children,
three daughters and one son: Sarah Dawson married Charles Spears of
Pittsburgh, Penna; Mary Dawson married Hon Chauncey Forward Black, son of
Judge Jere Black, ex-Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.
    John L Dawson retired from public life in 1867 after four terms of
honorable and distinguished service in the interest of his country.  From
1867 he resided with his family on the estate known as "Friendship Hill,"
the former residence of Albert Gallatin, until his death September 18,
1870, in the 58th year of his age...

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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