Aaron Leland

Aaron Leland (May 28, 1761 – August 25, 1832) was a Vermont minister and politician who served as the sixth Lieutenant Governor of Vermont.

Aaron Leland

Biography

Aaron Leland was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, on May 28, 1761.[1] He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1785 and settled in Chester, Vermont, in 1786. Leland was a successful pastor and preacher, building up a church which gave rise to congregations in Andover and Grafton, Massachusetts and Weathersfield and Jamaica, Vermont.[2][3][4]

Active in politics as a Democratic-Republican, Leland served in local offices including Town Clerk and Selectman, and was Windsor County Assistant Judge for eighteen years. He also served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1801 to 1811, and served as Speaker in 1804. He was also a member of the Governor's Council and served as one of Vermont's presidential electors in 1820.[5][6]

Leland served as Lieutenant Governor from 1822 to 1827. He declined to be nominated for Governor in 1828, preferring instead to continue serving as Pastor of his church.[7] Though he had been a Mason, in the late 1820s Leland became active in Vermont's Antimasonic movement.[8] He died in Chester, Vermont, on August 25, 1832, and was buried in Chester's Brookside cemetery.[9][10]

Leland was the recipient of honorary degrees from Middlebury College and Brown University.[11]

Sources

1. Annals of the American Pulpit, by William Buell Sprague, 1860, page 240 to 243
2. Magazine article, Vermont Baptists, The Baptist Home Mission Monthly, April, 1885, page 99
3. Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 3, 1887, page 683
4. Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by John McClintock, James Strong, Volume 5, 1873, page 341
5. History of the Town of Rockingham, Vermont, by Lyman Simpson Hayes, 1907, page 157
6. History of Vermont, by Zadock Thompson, 1842, page 53
7. Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, published by E. P. Walton, Montpelier, Volume 6, 1878, page 211
8. Opinions on Speculative Masonry, by James Creighton Odiorne, 1830, page 263
9. History of Windsor County, Vermont, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich and Frank R. Holmes, 1891, page 678
10. Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography, edited by Thomas William Herringshaw, Volume 3, 1914, page 514
11. Historical Catalogue of Brown University, published by the university, 1905, page 543