Harry Hibbard (1816 - 1872)
Born at Concord (VT); died at Sommerville (MA).
Lawyer; state and national legislator.
Posthumous portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1876.
Presented to the State by members of the New Hampshire Bar, 1876.

Hibbard (1816 - 1872) was born at Concord (VT). He graduated from Dartmouth College (Class of 1835), read law with Hon. Jared Williams (governor 1847 --1849) at Lancaster (NH), and in 1839 began a legal practice at Bath (NH).

As a new young lawyer Hibbard was almost immediately given a great opportunity to make a name for himself. The State Attorney General was unable to prosecute a front- page murder case, State v. Comings. Hibbard won the assignment, and his successful prosecution of the case for the state won him a reputation at the age of twenty-eight (1844). As a Democrat, Hibbard had already served as Assistant Clerk and then Clerk to the State House of Representatives (1839 - 1843). After the murder Hibbard ran and won a seat in the legislature (1844, 1845; Speaker of the House, 1845). He was then elected to the State Senate (1845 - 1848; President of the Senate, 1847, 1848).

Hibbard ran for the U. S. House of Representatives and served two terms at Washington, D.C. (1849 - 1855). He declined a third term, but President Franklin Pierce tried to get Hibbard an important foreign appointment. Hibbard declined the offer, then declined an offer of appointment to the State Supreme Court. He spent his remaining years at Somerville (MA) but is buried at Bath (NH).

References: Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894); U.S. Printing Office, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - 1989 (1989).