William Anderson was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
Background
William Anderson was born in December 1726. The available records, including the somewhat uncertain statements of the first United States census, support the contention that our William Anderson, son of this later William, was born in Accomac County, Virginia, and that a few years afterward the family had settled upon lands which it owned about 200 miles farther north in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
In Londongrove William passed his youth, but had little time for books.
Education
Presumably, he didn't receive any opportunities for education.
Career
In his fifteenth year he joined the Continental Army, becoming a member of Major-General Lafayette's staff at Brandywine, September 11, 1777, and serving at Germantown, at Valley Forge, and until after the surrender of Cornwallis, October 19, 1781, at Yorktown. Following a short period as colonel in the Pennsylvania militia, Anderson returned to Chester County, where he maintained a residence until his death.
In 1785 he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar. In September 1796 he purchased the Columbia House at Chester in which Lafayette's wounds had been dressed when Anderson was on his staff and which the latter had occupied for several years. A short time later he built the Anderson mansion at Fifth and Welsh Sts. , which soon became a social center for Chester and Delaware Counties. His political importance increased when on August 29, 1807, he headed the movement from Delaware County throughout the state to allow districts unrepresented in the legislative caucus to elect delegates having a right to vote therein.
Following this political activity he was elected to various local positions and in 1808 to the national House of Representatives, serving in the Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fifteenth Congresses. His name is associated with no prominent legislation at this time, although the marriage of his daughter Evelina to Commodore David Porter may have aroused the interest in naval affairs shown by his speech of January 25, 1810, upon the Navigation Act.
Throughout the War of 1812 he was a Jeffersonian, but his advocacy of Pennsylvania's interests and his friendship for the navy injured his popularity with the Southern wing of his party. His disregard for petty enmities caused disfavor at home but increased his capacity for service at Washington, where strict party lines were being replaced by sectional groupings.
He failed the reelection in 1818, and his later political positions came by appointment. During the Marquis de Lafayette's visit to America in 1824, Anderson, on behalf of various local committees, welcomed him to Pennsylvania, and to Delaware County.
He was selected as judge of the Delaware County court in Pennsylvania, January 5, 1826. Upon his resignation of this position in 1829, he was appointed United States Collector of Customs at Chester, where he died a few months later at the age of sixty-seven.
The exact date of his death was probably December 15, 1829, although it is also given as December 13, 14, and 16.
Achievements
Anderson took part in the American revolutionary war.
As a politician, he was elected to represent Pennsylvania's 1st and 2nd Districts in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1809 to 1815, and 1817 to 1819.
Anderson served as Delaware County auditor and county director of the poor.
He was also appointed an associate judge of the county court, and resigned in 1828 to become an inspector of customs in Philadelphia.
Politics
He was a Jeffersonian democrat and held many public offices.
Connections
He was married to Elizabeth Dixon of Virginia, by whom he had two daughters and one son.
