Background
Bidlack, Benjamin Alden was born on September 8, 1804 in Paris, New York, United States. Son of Benjamin and Lydia (Alden) Bidlack.
Diplomat politician representative
Bidlack, Benjamin Alden was born on September 8, 1804 in Paris, New York, United States. Son of Benjamin and Lydia (Alden) Bidlack.
He moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended the public schools. He graduated from the Wilkes-Barre Academy, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1825 and commenced practice in Wilkes-Barre.
He was elected district attorney of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in 1825. He moved to Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1830, and served as Pike County treasurer in 1834. He was editor of the Republican Farmer and the Democratic Journal in Wilkes-Barre.
Bidlack was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Congresses.
He was appointed Chargé d"Affaires to Colombia on May 14, 1845. He successfully negotiated a “treaty of peace, amity, and navigation” with Colombia and secured for the United States the right to build a canal or railroad across the Isthmus of Panama.
He died in Bogotá, Colombia in 1849, aged 44. He was interred in the English Cemetery.
He is known because he signed The Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty (also known as the Bidlack Treaty and Treaty of New Granada).
A treaty signed between New Granada (today Colombia and Panama) and the United States, on December 12, 1846. United States. minister Benjamin Alden Bidlack negotiated the pact with New Granada"s commissioner Manuel María Mallarino.
Member Pennsylvania Assembly, 1835-1836. Member United States House of Representatives (Democrat) from Pennsylvania, 32d-33d Congresses, 1841-1845.
Married Fanny Stewart, circa 1827. Married second, Margaret Wallace, September 8, 1829.