DAGGETT, David, jurist, born in Attleborough, Massachusetts, 31 December 1764; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 12 April 1851. He was graduated at Yale in 1783, studied and practiced law in New Haven, became state's attorney in 1811, mayor of the City in 1828, and held other local offices. From 1791 till 1813 he was a member of the Connecticut legislature, serving in 1794 as speaker, and from 1797 till 1804 and 1809 till 1813 as a member of the council or upper house. He voted as a presidential elector for Charles C. Pinekney in 1804 and 1808, and for De Witt Clinton in 1812. He was elected a U. S. senator in the place of Chauncey Goodrich, who resigned, and served from 24 May 1813, till 3 March 1819, when he returned to his extensive practice at the bar in Connecticut. From 1826 till 1832 he was a judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court, and then chief judge till 1834, when he reached the age of seventy years, and was retired under the statute. He became an instructor in the New Haven law-school in 1824, and was professor of jurisprudence from 1826 until he was compelled by the infirmities of age to resign the chair. A sketch of his life by the Rev. Samuel W. S. Dutton, D. D., appeared in 1851.

--His son, Oliver Ellsworth Daggett, clergyman, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 14 January 1810; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 1 September 1880, was graduated at Yale in 1828, studied in the law-school at New Haven, and, after being admitted to the bar in 1831, spent two years in the divinity-school. From 1837 till 1843 he was pastor of the South Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and of the Congregational Church in Canandaigua, New York, from 1845 till 1867. In September of the latter year he was chosen professor of divinity at Yale, where he remained till 1870, officiating during the same period as pastor of the College Church. From 1871 till 1877 he was minister of the Congregational Church in New London, Connecticut, after which he resided in Hartford. He published sermons and magazine articles, assisted in compiling a book of psalms and hymns (1845), and left a small volume of poems, printed posthumously.