Col. Joseph Cilley (1791 -1887)
Born and died in Nottingham (NH).
Farmer, war veteran and U.S. Senator.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney.
Presented to the State by descendants, 1876.
Educated at Atkinson Academy, Cilley left the family farm to fight in the War of 1812, first as an ensign and then as brevet captain of a company in the 21st Infantry, commanded first by Col. Eleazar Ripley, then by Col. James Miller. The Miller portrait is also in State House collections.

Cilley's company was in the Niagara campaign, and fought at Lundy Lane (see Miller biography). As his company charged up the hill they were ordered to take, Captain Cilley received a compound fracture of the thigh bone from a musket ball, a wound which caused him pain the rest of his life. He also lost an eye during the War, a fact recorded by the artist, U.D. Tenney, in this portrait.

Resigning from military service in 1816, Cilley returned to farming. But his military service was recognized: he was made division inspector by Major General Timothy Upham, and then appointed governor's aide by Governor Benjamin Pierce. Governor Pierce was himself a veteran of the American Revolution, and his son-in-law, John McNeil, was a hero of the War of 1812. When Levi Woodbury resigned from the United States Senate in preparation for a possible challenge to President Martin Van Buren in the 1844 presidential primary [see Donald Cole, Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800 - 1851 (1970)], Governor Pierce appointed Benning W. Jenness to fill the vacancy until the next session of the state legislature, in June 1846. The legislature then chose Cilley to fill out the Woodbury term during 1846 - 1847. After this period in Washington, Cilley returned to Nottingham and to farming.

Location: First Floor, State House