John Alsop - A Klos Family Project - Revolutionary War
John Alsop
1st Continental Congress
ALSOP, John of the continental
congress, born in Middletown, Connecticut: died in Newtown, Long Island, 22
November 1794. He was a prosperous merchant of unquestioned patriotism and
integrity, and was a worthy member of the first American congress in 1774-'76.
On the occupation of New York by the British forces he withdrew to Middletown,
Connecticut, remaining there until peace was concluded.
His son, Richard Alsop, author, born in Middletown, Connecticut, 23 January
1761 ; died in Flatbush, Long Island, 20 August 1815, studied at Yale College,
but did not complete the course, preferring to devote himself exclusively to
languages and literature. Although he was brought up to a mercantile life, it
proved so irksome that he soon devoted himself to letters, and formed a kind of
literary league, popularly known as the "Hartford Wits." These
included Theodore Dwight, Lemuel Hopkins, and Benjamin Trumbull. The
association, informal as it was, made a notable literary hit,, all of its
members being among the intellectual lights of the time. Alsop was the leading
spirit and the principal writer of the " Echo," a series of
burlesque essays (1791-'95). It, comprised travesties and exaggerations of
current publications, state papers, and the like, making a target of anything,
in fact, that offered a mark for the active wits of its editors. These papers
were mostly done into polished pentameters, somewhat ponderous but instinct with
fun, and not without latent wisdom.
Most of the "Wits" were federalists, and the "Echo"
soon became bitterly anti-democratic. The whole series was published in a volume
in 1807. Alsop's other works include a "Monody on the Death of
Washington," in heroic verse (Hartford, 1800); "The Enchanted
Lake of the Fairy Morgana" (1808); "The Natural and Civil
History of Chili," from the Italian of Molina, and fugitive pieces. In
1815 he edited the "Captivity and Adventures of J. R. Jewett among the
Savages of Nootka Sound." He was an accomplished linguist, acquiring
languages, as it seemed, by a sort of intuition, and made a distinct impression
on the drift of public thought.
Another son, John Alsop, poet, born in Middletown, Connecticut, 5 February
1776; died in Middletown, 1 November 1841), was a pupil of Dr. Dwight. He
studied in the law school of Judge Reeve at Litchfield, was admitted to the bar,
and began practice in New London. He afterward became a bookseller in Hartford,
and still later in New York. The latter part of his life was spent in retirement
in Middletown. His poems were never issued in book form, but appeared in various
periodicals and collections.
Biographical Directory of the US Congress
ALSOP, John, a
Delegate from New York; born in New Windsor, Orange County, N.Y., in 1724;
completed preparatory studies; moved to New York City and engaged in mercantile
pursuits and importing; represented New York City in the colonial legislature;
one of the incorporators of the New York Hospital, serving as its governor
1770-1784; Member of the Continental Congress 1774-1776; member of a committee
of one hundred appointed in 1775 by the citizens of the city to take charge of
the government until a convention could be assembled; served as the eighth
president of the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1784 and 1785; died in Newtown,
Long Island, N.Y., November 22, 1794; interment in Trinity Church Cemetery, New
York City.
