Background
Willian Eustis was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin Eustis, a well-known physician, and Elizabeth (Hill) Eustis.
Willian Eustis was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin Eustis, a well-known physician, and Elizabeth (Hill) Eustis.
After preparing for college at the Boston Latin School, he entered Harvard, graduating with the class of 1772.
He then studied medicine under Dr. Joseph Warren, later helping to care for the wounded after Bunker Hill and serving in the Revolutionary army, first as surgeon to the artillery regiment at Cambridge and finally as hospital surgeon.
Following the war he carried on the practise of his profession in Boston, but he abandoned it for a time in order to accompany the expedition against Shays (17S6-87) as surgeon.
He was gradually drawn into politics as an Anti-Federalist and sat for six years (178894) in the Massachusetts General Court.
An early adherent of Jefferson, Eustis ran for Congress in 1800 against the Federalist, Josiah Quincy, and was successful after a hotly contested campaign.
Adams later wrote (Writings, ed.
by W. C. Ford, III, 1914, p. 10), “I had a majority of votes in Boston; but two or three neighboring towns annexed to the Congressional district and a rainy day lost me the election by forty or fifty votes. ”
In 1804 Quincy was again a candidate, and this time Eustis was beaten.
During his two terms in the House of Representatives, Eustis cast his vote consistently for the administration policies.
He defended the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts, and, with George Blake, took part in a notable debate in a Boston town meeting (Jan. 24, 1808) against Harrison Gray Otis and Samuel Dexter.
The War Department was poorly equipped to meet an emergency, but the secretary and his eight clerks set to work at the task of increasing the army and reorganizing it for active duty.
Henry Clay, in a letter to James Monroe (Aug. 12, 1812), spoke of Eustis as an official “in whom there exists no sort of confidence. ”
Gallatin stated that Eustis’s incompetence was universally admitted.
In later years the best that Madison could say of him was that he was “an acceptable member of the cabinet” ( Writings, ed.
by G. Hunt, IX, 1910, p. 279).
The situation really demanded a forceful and far-sighted leader, with a talent for organization, and Eustis, who had been described as “an amiable man and an efficient politician” (Edward Channing, A History 0} the United States, IV, 1917, p. 459), was not qualified to conduct military campaigns.
When he resigned on Dec. 3, 1812, in the face of criticism, the War Department was taken over temporarily by James Monroe, who was also acting as secretary of state.
In 1814 Eustis was appointed by Madison as minister to Holland.
He spent four years abroad, returning in 1818 because of ill health.
It was impossible for him to keep out of politics, and, having been elected to Congress to fill a vacancy, he held a seat in that body from 1820 to 1823.
For three successive years—1820, 1821, and 1822—he ran for governor of Massachusetts against the Federalist, John Brooks, also a physician and a Revolutionary veteran, and was beaten each time by approximately the same small majority.
In 1823, when Brooks declined to be a candidate, Eustis defeated the conservative Harrison Gray Otis by a vote of 34, 402 to 30, 171, carrying not only all the previously Democratic counties, but also Essex, and Hampden, which had never before been in the Democratic column.
Eustis’s inaugural address, devoted principally to a denunciation of the Hartford Conventionists, provoked a quarrel between him and Otis, whom Eustis never forgave for some of his remarks (Adams, Memoirs, Sept. 22, 1824).
In 1824 Eustis ran against Lathrop, defeating him by 38, 650 to 34, 210, in the last gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts in which a Federalist was a candidate.
Early in 1825, not long after his second inauguration, he caught a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia.
His body lay in state in the capitol in Boston, and he was interred in the Granary Burying Ground with full military honors.
He purchased in 1819 the historic Shirley Mansion, in Roxbury, where he entertained in lavish style.
He was vice-president of the Society of the Cincinnati from 1786 to 1810 and again in 1820, and delivered an oration before the order on July 4, 1791.
Quotations: “I had a majority of votes in Boston; but two or three neighboring towns annexed to the Congressional district and a rainy day lost me the election by forty or fifty votes. ”
two terms in the House of Representatives
He was vice-president of the Society of the Cincinnati from 1786 to 1810 and again in 1820, and delivered an oration before the order on July 4, 1791.
A genial, courteous man, he made friends easily and was versed in all the arts of the politician.
He was praised after his death for his “frankness of disposition and decision of character, ” but it was his urbanity, not his ability, which placed him in positions of authority.
Eustis was married, on September 24, 1810, to Caroline Langdon, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who survived him until 1865. They had no children.
Two years later he had as his Federalist opponent the young John Quincy Adams, whom he defeated by 1,899 votes to 1,840.
His heart, which had not been strong for some time, weakened rapidly, and he died in his seventy-third year, in the very midst of the excitement aroused by the presidential election which resulted in the victory of his old rival, John Quincy Adams.
