Born in Windsor, Connecticut, Niles received a common school education and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1817 and practiced in Hartford, Connecticut. There, he also established a newspaper, the "Hartford Weekly Times", in 1817, where he worked as an editor as well as a contributor for over thirty years. He published two other papers, the Gazatteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and The Independent Whig.[1] He married Sarah Robinson on June 17, 1824. After her death on November 23, 1824, he married Jane Pratt on November 26, 1845.
Career
Niles became active in Democratic Party politics and a supporter of states-rights doctrines. In 1820 he was appointed an associate judge in the Hartford County Court, but didn't start until 1821. He served until 1826 when he was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives. Unsuccessful for reelection, he continued practicing law. In 1829 he was appointed Postmaster of Hartford, serving this position until 1836. He failed to be elected to an at-large Connecticut Representative seat.
Appointed United States Postmaster General by PresidentMartin Van Buren in 1840, Niles served until the end of the administration in 1841. As Postmaster General he ended delivery of mail on Sunday. He returned to the Senate as a class three senator in 1844. He was actually elected in 1842 and was to start in 1843, but ill health and a credentials challenge kept him out until the next year. When he was a US Senator, in 1845, he cast the deciding vote admitting Texas to the Union as a slave state, though he was against slavery.[3] He served from March 4, 1843, to March 3, 1849, and declined for reelection.[4] Associating with the Free Soil Party campaign of his friend Van Buren in 1848, he became their candidate for governor in 1849. He spent some time in Europe from 1851 to 1852.
Death
In his later years, Niles pursued horticulture. He had no children and bequeathed his library to the Connecticut Historical Society and left $70,000 in trust to the city of Hartford as a charity fund, the income of which he directed to be annually distributed to the poor. He was Connecticut's member on the original Republican National Committee in February 1856.
Niles died in Hartford on May 30, 1856, at the age of 68 and is interred in the city's Old North Cemetery [5]
Published works
Niles' Map of Mexico and the Republic of Texas, 1838
The Life of Oliver Hazard Perry (1820)
The Connecticut Civil Officer (1823)
A View of South America and Mexico, Comprising Their History, the Political Condition, Geography, Agriculture, Commerce, & c. of the Republics of Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, the United Provinces of South America and Chile, with a Complete History of the Revolution, in Each of These Independent States (two volumes, 1826)
History of South America and Mexico: Comprising Their Discovery, Geography, Politics, Commerce and Revolutions (two volumes, 1838)
References
^"John Milton Niles". Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved January 12, 2013.
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