Jonathan Cilley

Jonathan Cilley was born in Nottingham, New Hampshire, and was the son of Jane (Nealley) Cilley and Greenleaf Cilley.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}} He was the brother of Joseph Cilley, grandson of Major General Joseph Cilley, and nephew of Bradbury Cilley.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}}

Cilley attended Atkinson Academy and Bowdoin College.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}} He was a member of Bowdoin's famed class of 1825, which included Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}} While at Bowdoin, Cilley also became close friends with future U.S. President Franklin Pierce, a member of the class of 1824.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=79}} Deciding to stay in Maine after graduating from Bowdoin, Cilley studied law with John Ruggles, was admitted to the bar in 1828, and practiced in Thomaston.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}}

In 1829, Jonathan Cilley married Deborah Prince, the daughter of local businessman Hezekiah Prince.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}} Jonathan and Deborah had five children, two of whom died very young. Their surviving children were Greenleaf (b. 1829), Jonathan Prince (b. 1835), and Julia (b. 1837).{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=219}} Jonathan Prince Cilley became a brigadier general by brevet in the Union Army during the Civil War.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=219}} Greenleaf was a career officer in the United States Navy.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=220}} He married Malvina Vernet, the daughter of Luis Vernet, a former Argentinian governor of the Falkland Islands in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1861 and died in San Isidro, Buenos Aires in 1899.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=220}} Julia was the wife of Ellis Draper Lazell (1832–1875).{{sfn|John Lazell of Hingham And Some Of His Descendants|page=104}}

Cilley edited the Thomaston Register from 1829 to 1831{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=42}} and represented Thomaston in the Maine House of Representatives from 1831 to 1836,{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}} serving as Speaker in his final two years.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=108}} He was then elected to the United States Congress, but did not complete his first term.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=109}}

Cilley died in office after sustaining a fatal wound in a duel with Congressman William J. Graves of Kentucky.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} The climate surrounding the Twenty-fifth U.S. Congress was one of increasing political partisanship.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Majority Democrats fought with minority Whigs over the response to the Panic of 1837, which was generally blamed on the policies of Democratic President Martin Van Buren.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Underlying this conflict was lingering bitterness over the decision of Van Buren's predecessor, Democrat Andrew Jackson, not to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} One of the pillars of the Whig press was the New York Courier and Enquirer, a newspaper edited by James Watson Webb.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}}

Democrats, including Jonathan Cilley, considered Webb's coverage of Congress to be biased and unfair; Cilley vented some of his party's bitterness in remarks made on the House floor, and suggested that Webb's change from opposing to supporting the re-chartering of the bank came about because Webb received loans from the bank totaling $52,000.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Webb, who considered himself insulted by Cilley's suggestion of quid pro quo corruption, persuaded a Whig friend, Congressman William J. Graves, to deliver Webb's challenge to a duel.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Cilley refused to accept the letter, in terms which Graves decided were an insult to his honor; Graves then challenged Cilley, and Cilley felt honor bound to accept.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Dueling was prohibited within the boundaries of the District of Columbia, so the participants and their seconds – George Wallace Jones for Cilley and Henry A. Wise for Graves – arranged to meet on February 24, 1838, at the Bladensburg Dueling Grounds, just outside the city limits and inside the Maryland border.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}}

As the challenged party, Cilley had the choice of weapons.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Because of Graves' reputation as an expert pistol shot, Cilley selected rifles, with the distance between the duelists to be 80 yards, a distance far enough apart to negate Graves' supposed shooting skill; in actuality, the marked off distance was 94 yards.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} After their first fire missed, the participants shortened the distance and fired again, but again both shots missed.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} On the third exchange of shots, Graves fatally wounded Cilley by shooting him through the femoral artery.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} Cilley bled to death on the dueling ground within a matter of minutes.{{sfn|Ancient American Politics|page=136}} He was buried at Congressional Cemetery,{{sfn|Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC|page=37}} and re-interred at Elm Grove Cemetery in Thomaston, Maine.{{sfn|New England Must Not Be Trampled On|page=1}}

There is a cenotaph to Cilley's memory located at Congressional Cemetery.{{sfn|Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC|page=37}}

After Cilley's death, longtime friend Nathaniel Hawthorne published two biographical sketches of him.{{sfn|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography|page=110}} His colleagues paid tribute to him by passing a federal law on February 20, 1839, which strengthened the strict prohibition against dueling in Washington, D.C. by making it a crime to issue or accept a challenge within district limits, even if the actual duel was to take place outside the district.{{sfn|Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005|page=1148}}

• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)
• List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Eve |date=2002 |title=A Breach of Privilege: Cilley Family Letters, 1820–1867 |url=http://www.thomastonhistoricalsociety.com/Publications.html |location=Rockland, ME |publisher=Seven Coin Press |isbn=978-0970097446 |ref={{sfnRef|A Breach of Privilege: Cilley Family Letters, 1820-1867 }}}}
• {{cite book |last=Franscell |first=Ron |date=2012 |title=Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dg5eW51xl7QC&pg=PA37 |location=Guilford, CT |publisher=Globe Pequot Press |isbn=978-0-7627-7385-5 |ref={{sfnRef|Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC}}}}
• {{cite book |last=Ginn |first=Roger |date=2016 |title=New England Must Not Be Trampled On: The Tragic Death of Jonathan Cilley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WkE1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |location=Lanham, MD |publisher=Down East Books |isbn=978-1-60893-388-4 |ref={{sfnRef|New England Must Not Be Trampled On}}}}
• {{cite book |last1=Hastings |first1=Hugh J. |last2=Hastings |first2=Hugh |date=September 17, 1886 |title=Ancient American Politics |series=Franklin Square library; no. 543 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89073016206;view=2up;seq=142;size=150 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |location=New York, NY |ref={{sfnRef|Ancient American Politics}}}}
• {{cite book |last=Lazell |first=Theodore Studley |date=1936 |title=John Lazell of Hingham And Some Of His Descendants |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89061951927;view=2up;seq=108;size=175 |location=Haverhill, MA |publisher=The Record Publishing Company |ref={{sfnRef|John Lazell of Hingham And Some Of His Descendants}}}}
• {{cite book |last=United States Congress |date=2005 |title=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v9MBIctdjjkC&pg=PA1148 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=US Government Printing Office |isbn=978-0-16-073176-1 |ref={{sfnRef|Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005}}}}
• {{cite book |last=White |first=J. T. |date=1900 |title=The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography |volume=X |url=https://archive.org/stream/nationalcyclopa03unkngoog#page/n124/ |location=New York, NY |publisher=James T. White & Company |ref={{sfnRef|The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography}}}}

• {{cite book |last= Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums |editor=Doris A. Isaacson |title=Maine: A Guide 'Down East' |year=1970 |publisher=Courier-Gazette, Inc. |location=Rockland, Me | page = 261 }}
• Memoirs and Services of Three Generations: General Joseph Cilley, First New Hampshire Line. War of the Revolution; Johnathan Longfellow, Father of sarah, wife of General Joseph Cilley; Colonel Joseph Cilley, U.S. Senator and Officer in the War of 1812; Honorable Johnathan Cilley, Member of Congress from Maine; Commander Greenleaf Cilley, War with Mexico and War of 1861; General Johnathan P. Cilley, First Maine Cavalry, War of the Rebellion – reprint from the Courier-Gazette, Rockland Maine, 1909
• Political Portraits with Pen and Pencil. No. IX. Jonathan Cilley by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The United States Democratic Review (J.& H.G. Langley, etc., New York), Sept. 1838, vol. 3 issue 9, pp. 67–69. Available online at [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AGD1642-0003-12] (accessed March 8, 2008).

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{{CongBio|C000395}}

• [http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/cily.html Nathaniel Hawthorne's memorial to Jonathan Cilley], written in 1838
• {{Find a Grave|7232987}}
• {{Find a Grave|23303799|Jonathan Cilley (cenotaph)}}
• [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/churchwell-ciro.html#911.29.73 Jonathan Cilley] at The Political Graveyard
• {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116015443/http://cilley.net/thecilleypages/cilley-en-o/p165.htm|title=Honorable Jonathan Longfellow Cilley|date=January 16, 2020}}
• {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116023854/http://cilley.net/thecilleypages/cilley-en-o/p223.htm|title=His son, Commander Greenleaf Cilley (1829–1899)|date=January 16, 2020}}

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{{s-bef|before=Jeremiah Bailey}}

{{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Maine's 3rd congressional district|years=1837–1838}}

{{s-aft|after=Edward Robinson}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cilley, Jonathan}}

Category:1802 births

Category:1838 deaths

Category:19th-century American journalists

Category:19th-century American lawyers

Category:19th-century American male writers

Category:American male journalists

Category:American newspaper editors

Category:American politicians killed in duels

Category:Bowdoin College alumni

Category:Deaths by firearm in Maryland

Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Maine

Category:Maine lawyers

Category:People from Nottingham, New Hampshire

Category:People from Thomaston, Maine

Category:Speakers of the Maine House of Representatives

Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives

Category:19th-century members of the Maine Legislature