Timothy Pickering

Timothy Pickering ( July 17, 1745 in Salem, Massachusetts, † January 29, 1829 ) was an American politician of the Federalist party and the third Secretary of State.

Pickering graduated in 1763 at Harvard University. At the beginning of the American Revolution, he fought on the side of the patriots, but took in 1777 the offer of George Washington to serve as General - Adjutant in the U.S. Army, which turned out to be the best decision in hindsight. After two failed speculative transactions with parts of the border region of Pennsylvania made ​​him the now for President George Washington ascended to the Commissioner for the Indian people of the Iroquois and took him in 1791 as Postmaster General in his cabinet on. This post kept Pickering until 1795. In that year he was appointed minister of war in the short term and on December 19, 1795 as the successor to Edmund Randolph to the Secretary of State.

After disagreements with the new U.S. President John Adams on its planned conclusion of peace with the French, he resigned from his position as Secretary of State on May 20 in 1800. He was succeeded on 13 June of the same year John Marshall. Pickering in 1803 for Massachusetts elected to the U.S. Senate, which he remained until 1811. After that, he was from 1813 to 1817 to the U.S. House of Representatives.

After his political career, Pickering returned to Salem and lived as a farmer until his death in 1829.