Compiled by Russell Bastedo
NH State Curator
1998/1999

Woodbury Langdon (1738/9 - 1805)
Merchant, state and national legislator.
Born and died at Portsmouth (NH).
Portrait by A. W. Twitchell, n.d., after portrait by J. S. Copley.
Presented to the State by a descendant, 1883.

Langdon attended the Latin grammar school at Portsmouth, then went into the counting room of Henry Sherburne, an important merchant. In 1765 Langdon married Sherburne's daughter, and by 1770 he was thought to be a wealthy member of the Portsmouth economy.

Politically Langdon was a member of the coastal merchant aristocracy. He succeeded in preventing Portsmouth from subscribing to the colonies' Non-Importation Agreement, which was an effort to prevent use of British-made products in the colonies; but Portsmouth elected Langdon to the provincial assembly (Spring 1774), and to the revolutionary convention at Exeter (Summer 1774). He was re-elected to the provincial assembly (February 1775).

As war broke out Langdon went to England (1775), to collect monies owed him. He was in Europe for two years and was suspected of trying to work on trade agreements with France; when he returned to North America he landed at New York and was imprisoned by the British (Summer 1777). Langdon escaped (December 1777) and got back to Portsmouth.

Langdon was elected to the Continental Congress (Spring 1779) and he went to Philadelphia for the Fall 1779 meeting. He did not much like the experience and he refused to return, although he was re-elected a delegate in 1780, 1781, and 1785. He held various offices at Portsmouth, however, and he was made a Justice of the Supreme Court (1782). He resigned this position after a year, however, and refused to resume his duties though requested to do so. He was chosen to be the first president of the New Hampshire State Senate (1784, 1785); his brother, John Langdon, was also a State Senator at this time.

Langdon accepted a commission as a judge in 1785. He held the position until 1790 - when an impeachment trial began in the House of Representatives because Langdon had not held court at specific places and times over the preceding two years. This effort to impeach Langdon failed, but another effort was to be made in the next legislative session. Before another effort to impeach could be made, Langdon resigned his position to accept appointment as a federal commissioner. In this position he was to resolve differences between the new federal government and the states.

Langdon ran twice for the United States Congress as a Republican, but he lost both times (1796, 1797). William Plumer, an early New Hampshire governor, wrote of Langdon:

He was a man of great independence and decision - bold, keen, and sarcastic, and spoke his mind of men and measures with great freedom.....He was naturally inclined to be arbitrary and haughty, but his sense of what was right, and his pride prevented him from doing intentional evil.

References: Dumas Malone, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, vol, X (1933); Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894); Gerald Foss, Three Centuries of Freemasonry in New Hampshire (1972).