Outerbridge Horsey

Horsey was born in Stepney Parish, Somerset County, Maryland, to William Horsey of Rewastico (1745–1786), a planter, merchant, member for Somerset County of the Ninth Maryland Convention (which framed Maryland's first state constitution) in 1776, and a justice of Somerset County, and Eleanor ("Nellie") Wailes, daughter of George Wailes. After living in Georgetown, he moved to Wilmington, and studied the law there under James A. Bayard, who remained his lifelong political mentor. A frequent supporter of education, Horsey, early in his career, urged the establishment of a library in Georgetown and later was appointed a trustee of the College of Wilmington.

He married Elizabeth Digges Lee, daughter of former Governor Thomas Sim Lee (1745–1819) of Maryland.[http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/014900/014927/html/14927bio.html Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series): Elizabeth Digges Horsey (1783–1862) (MSA SC 3520-14927)] They had at least two sons who survived to adulthood:

• Thomas Sim Lee Horsey (1816–1834), who died unmarried
• Outerbridge Horsey IV (1819–1902), an attorney who at an early age decided to consecrate his life to the manufacture of whiskey and set up a distillery at the Needwood estate, which he inherited from his father - of his four sons who survived to adulthood, only one married and had children, Outerbridge Horsey V (1875–1931), who left the family estate to study at Georgetown and thence to New York Law School, upon which he settled in New York City and established a respectable legal practice, becoming a member of the firm Nicoll, Anable, Fuller & Sullivan, where he stayed until its dissolution in 1924 and from then until his death in 1931 was a member of the firm Jackson, Fuller, Nash & Brophy - his son (Outerbridge Horsey III's great-grandson) Outerbridge Horsey (1910–1983) became a career U.S. diplomat and lived in the District of Columbia, as does his son of the same name.

He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in December 1807, and began a practice in Wilmington.{{cite web |last1=Morgan |first1=Michael |title=Delaware history: A vote for Missouri Compromise ended a senator's career |url=https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2020/03/07/delaware-history-vote-missouri-compromise-ended-senators-career/4929658002/ |website=Delmarva Now |publisher=Salisbury Daily Times |access-date=January 10, 2022 |date=March 7, 2020}} One source believes he served as a delegate in Delaware's legislature in 1800–1802, but his father may have shared the same name.{{cite web |url=https://voteview.com/person/4586/outerbridge-horsey |title=Voteview | Sen. HORSEY, Outerbridge (Federalist, DE): Sen. HORSEY is more conservative than 82% of the 16th Senate, and more liberal than 60% of Federalists }}

Horsey owned more than 36 slaves during his life and freed some of them as he grew older.{{cite news |last1=Weil |first1=Julie Zauzmer |last2=Blanco |first2=Adrian |last3=Dominguez |first3=Leo |title=More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/ |access-date=January 10, 2022 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=January 10, 2022}} Seven months after his marriage, on November 11, 1812, he manumitted fourteen enslaved people, including four enslaved people whom Elizabeth Lee Horsey had bought from her father in 1806.{{cite web |url=https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/educ/exhibits/lee/html/case4.html |title=Museum Online - Thomas Sim Lee }}

While practicing the law and after representing Sussex County in the Delaware State House from the 1801 session through the 1803 session, Horsey was appointed to be the Delaware Attorney General and served from 1806 to 1810.

In 1810 he was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of U.S. Senator Samuel White. In the Senate, he initially opposed the War of 1812 strongly, but once it had been declared, he supported it with equal vigor. He accordingly became a member of the Committee of Safety and was actively involved in preparing the defenses of Fort Union and Wilmington. In March 1814 Horsey presented a petition from the citizens of Delaware to repeal the Embargo Act of 1807; although he was able to get a committee appointed to consider the question, the effort was ultimately unsuccessful. He was reelected in 1814 and served from January 12, 1810,{{efn|He was seated on January 29, 1810.}} to March 3, 1821.

Following the War of 1812, but while still a contentious subject, the need for internal improvements had become much more apparent and recognized. It would be on Horsey's motion in January 1816, that the Senate finally passed the resolution to print and distribute copies of Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin's 1808 Report on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals. The report, which had been requested by the Senate in 1807 and transmitted to it in 1808[https://books.google.com/books?id=d-UNAQAAMAAJ&dq=Report%20on%20the%20Subject%20of%20Public%20Roads%20and%20Canals&pg=PP1 Report on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals], had fallen victim to the embargo, the loss of revenue, and the necessities of war. With the report's distribution, many of its concepts would be incorporated into the Bonus Bill of 1817.

Several years later, he parted ways with the Delaware General Assembly which had passed a resolution asking Delaware's congressmen to vote against any extension of slavery. Horsey did not feel U.S. Congress had the right to prohibit slavery in Missouri, or anywhere else in the Louisiana Purchase, and so supported the Missouri Compromise. Understanding the unpopularity of this position, he did not seek reelection when his term ended. During the 16th Congress, he served as Chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia.

File:Outerbridge Horsey grave MD1.jpg

Upon his father-in-law's death, his wife inherited several hundred acres of the 945-acre Needwood tract near Petersville and Burkittsville in Frederick County, Maryland. In later life, he built an attractive but modest brick two-story Federal-style dwelling known as 'Horsey Needwood' and spent his declining years and died there on June 9, 1842. He is buried in St. John's Cemetery at Frederick, Maryland. His son Outerbridge Horsey IV built the more grand Victorian-style addition in his prosperous years. The house was eventually sold out of the family in 1939 but still stands today.

He owned the Zachariah Ferris House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.{{cite web |url={{NRHP url|id=70000173}} |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Zachariah Ferris House |author=Albert Kruse |date=August 1969}}{{NRISref|version=2010a}} The main house at Needwood Farms, operated by his brother in law Thomas S. Lee, who sympathized with the Confederacy during the Civil War, remains and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, although the Horsey Distillery did not survive the conflict.[https://web.archive.org/web/20170128014244/https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Frederick/F-2-63.pdf Maryland Historical Trust] His son, also Outerbridge Horsey (1819–1902), was a Democratic politician who represented Frederick County at the 1867 state constitutional convention.{{cite web |url=https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/013100/013171/html/13171bio.html |title=Outerbridge Horsey, MSA SC 3520-13171 }}

Elections were held the first Tuesday of October. Members of the State House took office on the first Tuesday of January for a term of one year. The General Assembly chose the U.S. Senators, who took office March 4 for a six-year term. In this case, he was initially completing the existing term, the vacancy caused by the death of Samuel White.

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• {{cite journal |last=DePuydt |first=Peter J. |title=Free at Last, Someday: Senator Outerbridge Horsey and Manumission in the Nineteenth Century |journal=Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies |volume=76 |date=Spring 2009 |issue=2 |pages=164–178|doi=10.2307/27778885 |jstor=27778885 }}
• {{cite book |last=Martin |first=Roger A. |year=1995 |title=Memoirs of the Senate |publisher=Roger A. Martin |location=Newark, DE }}
• {{cite book |last=Munroe |first=John A. |year=1954 |title=Federalist Delaware 1775-1815 |publisher=Rutgers University |location=New Brunswick, NJ}}
• {{cite book |last=Wilson |first=W. Emerson |year=1969 |title=Forgotten Heroes of Delaware |publisher=Deltos Publishing Company |location=Cambridge, MA }}

• [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000795 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress]
• [http://www.russpickett.com/history/sentbio3.htm#horsey Delaware’s Members of Congress]
• [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/hornbeck-horter.html#R9M0J10NB The Political Graveyard ]

• Delaware Historical Society; [https://web.archive.org/web/19961231010053/http://hsd.org/ website]; 505 North Market Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19801; (302) 655-7161.
• University of Delaware; [http://www.lib.udel.edu/ Library website]; 181 South College Avenue, Newark, Delaware 19717; (302) 831-2965.

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Category:1777 births

Category:1842 deaths

Category:Politicians from Wilmington, Delaware

Category:Delaware lawyers

Category:Delaware Federalists

Category:Delaware attorneys general

Category:Members of the Delaware House of Representatives

Category:United States senators from Delaware

Category:19th-century American lawyers

Category:19th-century United States senators

Category:19th-century members of the Delaware General Assembly