William Anderson (Pennsylvania)

William Anderson (1762 – December 16, 1829) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Major William Anderson gravestone in Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church burial ground in Chester, Pennsylvania

William Anderson was born in Accomack County, Virginia, in 1762. Married to Elizabeth Dixon. During the Revolutionary War, he joined the Continental Army at the age of fifteen and served until the end of the war. He was a major on the staff of General Lafayette and distinguished himself at Germantown and Yorktown.

In 1796, Anderson became engaged in the hotel business through the purchase of the Columbia House in Chester, Pennsylvania.^[1]

He served as Delaware County auditor in 1804 and county director of the poor in 1805.^[2] He was a Jeffersonian democrat and held many public offices.

Anderson was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Congresses. He was elected to the Fifteenth Congress. He was appointed an associate judge of the county court on January 5, 1826, and resigned in 1828 to become an inspector of customs in Philadelphia. He served until his death in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1829. Interment in Old St. Paul’s Church Cemetery.^[3]

References

• United States Congress. "William Anderson (id: A000235)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard