Biography
Peck was born in Lyme, Connecticut, one of thirteen children of Elijah Peck and Hepzibah Pierson. He was raised on the family farm, and his formal education was limited to attending a country grammar school, but he taught himself by reading the Bible many times over. In 1771 at about age 23, Peck returned from a sea voyage to learn that his parents, three brothers and a sister had died. He became extremely depressed and wrote in his journal that he longed for:
- Days and times past when may father and Mother and all my bretherin and Sisters were about me in helth and prosperity but alas! trubel and Sorow hath Sorounded me and I am a poor Disconsolate Cretur. There is no place that Seemes to be home to me.
He kept that journal in a secret drawer in his desk throughout the remainder of his life, and from that time he became quite evangelical about his faith.
He served four years as an enlisted man in the American Revolutionary Army. In 1790 he settled in what was to become the town of Burlington, Otsego County, New York. When Burlington was formed from a part of the Town of Otsego in 1792, Jedediah Peck became Burlington's first Town Supervisor and remained in that job for eight years. He is said to have been elected to the position three times, the latest in 1820, when he would have been 73.
He also worked as a surveyor and millwright, studied law, was appointed as a judge, wrote political tracts, and conducted religious services on request. He is said to have been seen as an awkward figure, with his "drawling, nasal, yankee twang" and his saddle-bags "filled with political papers and scraps" that he distributed to all who would listen.
Peck was a strong anti-Federalist, and in 1798, Judge William Cooper, an ardent Federalist, had him arrested by a United States Marshal under the Alien and Sedition Acts for circulating petitions against those very acts. Peck was taken in irons to be tried in New York City. The spectacle of the martyred war hero being transpored in chains only served to help the Republican cause. Peck was soon released without trial.
He was a member of the New York State Legislature for eleven years, in the Assembly (1798–1804) and in the Senate (1804 to 1808).
Read more about this topic: Jedediah Peck
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