Oliver Wolcott letter (RLC.Ms.548)

Biographical note

Oliver Wolcott (1760-1833) was born on January 11, 1760, to Oliver (1726-1797) and Laura (Collins) Wolcott (1732-1794) in Litchfield, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale in 1778 and then entered the Litchfield Law School, studying under Tapping Reeve (1744-1823). Wolcott served in the military during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) in two minor campaigns in 1777 and 1779 and later accepted an appointment in the quartermaster’s department, supervising the safekeeping and transportation of army stores and weaponry in Litchfield. In 1781, Wolcott was admitted to the bar and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. He was appointed to the Committee of the Pay-Table, which supervised Connecticut’s war expenditures, in January 1782. In 1784, he was selected to be a commissioner for the state and in May 1788, he was appointed the Comptroller of Public Accounts. In the following year, Wolcott was named auditor for the new national Treasury Department and was appointed Comptroller of the United States Treasury in 1791 by President George Washington (1732-1799). When Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) resigned as Secretary of the Treasury, Wolcott was appointed to succeed him on February 2, 1795, and remained in this position until his retirement in November 1800.

Wolcott moved with his family to New York in 1803, where he and a group of businessmen formed the agency, Oliver Wolcott & Company and became involved in foreign trade, manufacturing merino wool, and retail sales. In April of that year, Wolcott was named president of the Merchant’s Bank in New York, a position he held for a year. He was later elected to the main board of directors of the Bank of the United States in 1810-1811 and when their charter lapsed in March 1811, he played an important role in the establishment of the Bank of America, serving as its president from 1812 to 1814. Following his successful business and banking career, Wolcott returned to Litchfield in 1815 to live as a gentleman farmer. He was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1817 and served in that position until 1827.

Oliver Wolcott had married Elizabeth Stoughton on June 1, 1785, with whom he had seven children. Wolcott died in New York on June 1, 1833, and is buried in the East Cemetery in Litchfield.