James Wadsworth (lawyer)

James Wadsworth ( born July 8, 1730 in Durham, Middlesex County, Connecticut, † September 22, 1817 ) was an American politician, who participated as a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress.

After a comprehensive study of English James Wadsworth made ​​in 1748 graduated from Yale College. He then trained to become lawyers and was admitted to the Bar Association. From 1756 to 1786 he served as Town Clerk in the administration of his hometown of Durham; in 1762, he served there as well as a justice of the peace. 1773 he was appointed Judge of the District Court of New Haven County, which he chairs took over five years thereafter. During the American Revolution, Wadsworth joined a local Committee of Safety. These bodies took over the course of time the actual local management of the British colonial authorities. In the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War he held the rank of colonel in the militia, he rose to major general.

In 1784, Wadsworth was sent as a delegate of his country to the meetings of the Continental Congress, which met at this time in Annapolis and Trenton. Between 1785 and 1789 he was a member of the Executive Council of Connecticut; in the years 1786 to 1787, he served as state auditor ( Comptroller ). He was also a member of the convention that for Connecticut ratified in 1788 the Constitution of the United States, but agreed it even against their adoption. Then practiced Wadsworth from any public functions. His great-grandnephew, who also bore the name of James Wadsworth, was from 1851 to 1852 Mayor of Buffalo.