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Senate Years of Service: 1811-1817 Party: Democratic Republican
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20090825084823im_/http://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/V/V000074.jpg) |
Oil on canvas, Charles L. Elliott, 1888, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
VARNUM, Joseph Bradley, (brother of James Mitchell Varnum),
a Representative and a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Dracut,
Middlesex County, Mass., January 29, 1750 or 1751; largely self-taught; farmer;
served in the Revolutionary Army; member, State house of representatives
1780-1785; member, State senate 1786-1795; delegate to the State convention
that ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788; justice of the court of common
pleas; chief justice of the court of general sessions; elected to the Fourth
and to the eight succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1795, to June
29, 1811, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; Speaker of the House
during the Tenth and Eleventh Congresses; chairman, Committee on Elections
(Fifth Congress); elected as a Democratic Republican to the United States
Senate in 1811 to fill the vacancy in the term commencing March 4, 1811, and
served from June 29, 1811, to March 3, 1817; served as President pro tempore of
the Senate during the Thirteenth Congress; chairman, Committee on Militia
(Fourteenth Congress); delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1820;
member, State senate 1817-1821; died in Dracut, Mass., September 21, 1821;
interment in Varnum Cemetery.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography; Varnum,
Joseph. Autobiography of General Joseph B. Varnum. Edited by James M. Varnum.
Magazine of American History 20 (November 1888): 405-14.
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