History of Osterville, (Barnstable County) Massachusetts United States of America

Our database does not include an historic photo for Osterville, (Barnstable County) Massachusetts, do you have one you would like to contribute? Contact Us!

Benjamin Franklin Hallett, politician, was born in Osterville, Barnstable, Mass., Dec. 2, 1797; son of Benjamin Hallett, shipmaster, who served in both the army and navy in the Revolutionary war, and who founded the Bethel chapel in New York and subsequently in Boston. He was graduated at Brown. A.B., 1816: A.M., 1819, and was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1819. He practised law in Providence, R.I., 1819-21; edited the Providence Journal, 1821-27, and the Daily Advertiser, 1827-33, which latter he conducted as an anti-masonic organ. He was editor-in-chief of the Boston, Mass., Advocate, 1833-38, conducted as an anti-masonic paper. He bitterly assailed the political policy of Henry Clay when that leader refused to accept the anti-masonic vote, and when the movement had exhausted itself, he joined the Democratic party, in the councils of which organization be was a powerful factor. He practised law in Boston, 1838-62; was a member of the Massachusetts executive council in 1843; a member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853: was U.S. district attorney by appointment of President Pierce, 1853-57; a delegate to successive Democratic national conventions and for many years chairman of the national committee. He advanced the nomination of Pierce in 1852, and of Buchanan in 1856, and was the author of the Cincinnati platform of 1856. He was a contributor to the Boston Morning Post, and is the author of: Report of Trial of A. S. Field for Murder of Jonathan Gray (1826); Legislative Investigation into Masonry (1832); Address to people of Massachusetts in relation to Free Masonry (1833); Rights of the Marshpen Indians (1884); and The Right of the People to Establish Forms of Government (1848). He died in Boston, Mass., Sept. 30, 1862.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Osterville, (Barnstable County) Massachusetts

Biographies: