Peter Dumont Vroom was an American lawyer, congressman, governor, and chancellor of New Jersey.
Background
Peter Dumont Vroom was born on December 12, 1791, in Hillsboro Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. He was the son of Col. Peter Dumont and Elsie (Bogert) Vroom. The male line was Dutch, the first Vroom to come to America being Cornelius Petersen Coursen of Langeraer, the Netherlands, who arrived on Long Island about 1638, but the original stock is said to have been French Huguenot.
The name Vroom (or de Vroom) was first taken by Hendrick, son of Cornelius Petersen; otherwise, the family retained the name of Coursen (or Corsen). The elder Peter Vroom (1745 - 1831) rose by successive degrees from the rank of lieutenant to that of lieutenant-colonel in the 2nd Battalion of the Somerset, New Jersey, militia in the Revolutionary War.
Subsequently, he was sheriff of Somerset County, county clerk, member of the General Assembly (1790 - 98, and 1813) and of the Legislative Council (1798 - 1804); he was also a justice of the peace and judge of the court of common pleas.
Education
Vroom received his preparatory education at the Somerville Academy, Somerville, New Jersey, and was graduated from Columbia College, New York City, in 1808.
Career
Vroom read law under George McDonald at Somerville and was admitted to the New Jersey bar as attorney in 1813 and as counsellor in 1816 and became sergeant-at-law in 1828. He practised successively at Schooleys Mountain (1813), Hackettstown (1814 - 16), Flemington (1817 - 21), and Somerville, where he remained about twenty years. Although he had been a Federalist, in 1824, he became a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson.
He served as a member of the New Jersey Assembly in 1826, 1827, and 1829. In 1829 he was elected to the combined office of governor and chancellor of the state. He served until 1832 and again from 1833 to 1836. The equity opinions he rendered as chancellor were so sound that "for the most part, they stood unquestioned" for many years after. In 1837 he was appointed by President Van Buren one of three commissioners to adjust land-reserve claims in Mississippi under a treaty with the Choctaw Indians.
He was elected to Congress in 1838 but, owing to irregularities in some of the returns, was not commissioned. After what is known as the "Broad Seal War, " the courts established that he was elected by a clear majority, and he was seated, serving in the House of Representatives from March 4, 1839, to March 3, 1841. At the end of his term, he removed permanently to Trenton. In 1844, he was a delegate to the convention that framed the constitution of New Jersey.
In 1848, he was associated with Henry Woodhull Green, William Lewis Dayton, and Stacy G. Potts in framing statutes to comply with the new constitution. He declined an appointment as chief justice of the state supreme court, but in 1854 accepted appointment by President Pierce as minister to the court of Prussia. He was in Berlin until 1857, when he was recalled at his own request.
In Prussia he handled well the difficult question of the right of Germans, naturalized as American citizens but living in Prussia, to claim exemption from the compulsory military law of their native country. In 1860, Vroom was placed upon the Breckinridge and Lane Democratic electoral ticket. He was opposed, however, to the secession movement and was a member of the futile peace conference which met at Washington, February 4, 1861. He supported George Brinton McClellan for president in 1864, and in 1868 was an elector on the Seymour and Blair presidential ticket. In 1865, he took the place of his son, John P. Vroom, who died that year, as law reporter of the New Jersey supreme court and served until 1873. He was one of the commissioners of the sinking fund of the state from 1864 until his death.
Of the vigorous constitution, a hard worker at all times, he practiced his profession with undiminished powers until a short time before his death, which occurred on November 18, 1873, in Trenton.
Achievements
Connections
On May 21, 1817, Vroom married Ann V. D. Dumont of Somerset County. After the death of his first wife he married, November 4, 1840, Maria Matilda Wall, daughter of Gen. Garret D. and Maria (Rhea) Wall of Burlington, New Jersey.