Barnabas Bidwell
| Barnabas Bidwell | |
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Portrait by John Brewster, Jr.
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 12th district |
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In office March 4, 1805 – March 3, 1807 |
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| Preceded by | Simon Larned |
| Succeeded by | Ezekiel Bacon |
| Attorney General of Massachusetts | |
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In office June 15, 1807 – August 30, 1810 |
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| Preceded by | James Sullivan |
| Succeeded by | Perez Morton |
| Member of the Massachusetts State Senate |
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In office 1801–1804 |
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| Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives |
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In office 1805–1807 |
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| Treasurer of Berkshire County, Massachusetts | |
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In office September, 1791 – August, 1810 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | August 23, 1763 Township No. 1 now Monterey, Massachusetts |
| Died | July 27, 1833 (aged 69) Bath, Upper Canada |
| Resting place | Cataraqui Cemetery, Kingston, Ontario |
| Nationality | American, Canadian |
| Political party | Democratic-Republican |
| Children | Marshall Spring Bidwell |
| Alma mater | Yale College class of 1785, Brown University |
| Profession | Attorney |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
Barnabas Bidwell (August 23, 1763 – July 27, 1833) was an author, teacher, and politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, active in Massachusetts and Upper Canada. Educated at Yale, he practiced law in western Massachusetts and served as treasurer of Berkshire County. He served in the state legislature as representative and senator, in the US Congress as spokesman for the administration of Thomas Jefferson. He was effective in defending the administration's positions and passing important legislation, and was the Massachusetts Attorney General from 1807 to 1810, when exaggerated press accounts of irregularities in the Berkshire County books halted his political career and prompted his flight to Upper Canada. Bidwell later paid the $63.18, plus fines, which he attributed to a Berkshire County clerk while he was away on duties in Boston. Nonetheless, the controversy, exaggerated in the press by his Federalist Party enemies, effectively scuppered his potential appointment to the US Supreme Court.
In Canada, he won a seat in the provincial assembly but his political opponents managed to expell him on charges of having his American citizenship, being a fugitive, and having mmoral character.
Bidwell was son of American Revolutionary War Patriot Adonijah Bidwell, Yale 1740, and Jemima Devotion in Township No. 1 (now Monterey, Massachusetts), and he graduated from Yale College in 1785. Through his mother, he was descended from John Haynes, 5th Governor of Massachusetts and 1st Governor of Connecticut, and George Wyllys, 4th Governor of Connecticut. He later attended the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (now known as Brown University) in Providence, Rhode Island. He studied law under judge Theodore Sedgwick of . Sedgwick, a prominent member of the House of Representatives and later a senator, was an important spokesman for the Federalist Party. He was admitted to the Massachusetts state bar in 1805 and commenced practice in .
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