Stanton, Henry B.

Born: 1805-06-27 Connecticut

Died: 1887-01-14 New York, New York

Flourished: 1847 to 1862 Seneca Falls, New York

Henry B. Stanton, attorney, reformer, and public official, was born in Griswold, Connecticut. He attended a local academy, studied law in Rochester, New York, and subsequently enrolled in Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1832. Two years later, Stanton helped to organize an anti-slavery society at Lane. Following opposition from the institution’s trustees, Stanton was one of around fifty students who left the seminary. Shortly thereafter he became an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, ultimately serving on the organization’s executive committee. Stanton became a well-regarded anti-slavery orator, and wrote for religious and abolitionist publications, including the Liberator. In 1840 he married fellow reformer Elizabeth Cady and the pair traveled to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention, which barred American women, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, from taking their seats as delegates. Henry B. Stanton read law under his father-in-law in Johnstown, New York, and after qualifying at the bar established a legal practice in Boston. In 1847 he relocated to Seneca Falls, New York, where in addition to his work in law and abolition, he developed a political career. Stanton was elected to the New York Senate in 1849 and again in 1851. His party affiliation evolved over time, and he assisted in drafting the Free Soil Party platform in 1848, subsequently joined with the Democratic Party, then acted as an organizer of the Republican Party in New York in 1855. Stanton remained a Republican through the presidential administration of Ulysses S. Grant, and which time he returned to the Democratic Party.

Mary Wilhelmine Williams, “Stanton, Henry Brewster,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), 17:524-25; Ann D. Gordon, "Stanton, Elizabeth Cady," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 20:562; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Seneca Falls, Seneca County, NY, 308; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 4, Seneca Falls, Seneca County, NY, 117; The New-York Times (NY), 15 January 1887, 2:1; The Sun (New York, NY), 15 January 1887, 2:3, 7.