Matthew Lyon

Matthew Lyon (* July 14, 1749 in Dublin, Ireland; † August 1, 1822 in Spadra Bluff, Arkansas ) was an American politician. Between 1797 and 1801, he represented the first electoral district of the state of Vermont, and from 1803 to 1811 the first electoral district of Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Matthew Lyon attended the public schools of his Irish homeland and began in 1763 an apprenticeship in the printing trade. Two years later he emigrated to the United States, where he worked on a farm near Woodbury (Connecticut). There he also completed his education. In 1774 he moved to Wallingford in Vermont, which was then known as the " New Hampshire Grants".

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, he joined the American movement and placed in his new home own militia unit. Until 1778 Lyon took an active part in the war. Then he turned to politics. Since 1777 he was a resident of Arlington ( Vermont). Between 1779 and 1796 he was several times delegate in the House of Representatives from Vermont. In 1783 he founded the place in Fair Haven Vermont. At the same time he became a successful businessman, who ran among other things, a paper mill and a printing company founded in 1793. In addition, he was in his home out two newspapers.

Lyon was a member of the later founded by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson Democratic- Republican Party. In the years 1791 and 1793, he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament in each case in Congress. A protest against the election of Congressman Israel Smith was unsuccessful. 1796 Lyon was elected in the first district of Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he became Smith's successor on 4 March 1797. After a re-election in 1798 he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1801 two legislative sessions. In 1800 he opted not to run again.

1801 Lyon moved in, named after his son Chittenden Lyon County, Kentucky. There he continued his political career. In 1802 he was elected to the House of Representatives from Kentucky. In the congressional elections of that year Lyons was elected in the first district of his new home state in the U.S. House of Representatives. There he took over from the March 4, 1803 Thomas Terry Davis. After he was confirmed in each case in the three subsequent elections, Lyon was able to complete up to March 3, 1811 a total of four legislative sessions in Congress. Along with his time as a congressman from Vermont, he was a member of the House of Representatives in a total of six legislative periods.

In the elections of 1810 he was defeated Anthony New. In 1820, Lyon was representative of the American government in the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas Territory. In that year he made ​​an unsuccessful appeal against the election of James Woodson Bates for Congress delegates this territory. Matthew Lyon died on 1 August 1822 in Spadra Bluff. His son was a member of Chittenden and State Senator in Kentucky and represented 1827-1835 the state of Kentucky in Congress. Matthew Lyon was also the grandfather of William Peters Hepburn, who sat for the State of Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives.