Representative Daniel Avery

Daniel Avery was the name of two notable American figures active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Daniel Avery, an American politician from New York born in 1766 and deceased in 1842, and Daniel Avery, an American Mormon leader born in 1798 and deceased in 1851. Though they shared the same name and era, their lives followed distinct paths in public service and religious leadership, respectively, and they are treated separately in historical records.

The earlier of the two, Daniel Avery the politician, was born in 1766, in the period just before the American Revolution. Growing up in the closing years of the colonial era and the formative years of the new republic, he came of age as New York and the United States were establishing their political institutions. His early life would have been shaped by the transition from British colonial governance to independent state and federal systems, a context that influenced many who later entered public office in New York.

Avery pursued a career in public affairs in New York, where he is recorded as an American politician. Active during a time when New York was expanding westward and consolidating its state government, he would have participated in or been affected by the development of state and local political structures, the evolution of party politics, and the broader national debates of the early republic, including questions of federal versus state power and economic development. His public service placed him among the generation that helped stabilize and administer New York in the decades following independence. Daniel Avery, the New York politician, died in 1842, having lived through and contributed to more than half a century of the state’s and nation’s early political history.

The second figure, Daniel Avery the Latter Day Saint leader, was born in 1798 in the United States, entering adulthood in the early nineteenth century as new religious movements were spreading across the country. His formative years coincided with the era of the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense religious revival and experimentation that gave rise to new denominations and reform movements. Within this environment, Avery became associated with the early Latter Day Saint movement, which emerged in the 1820s and 1830s and rapidly developed a distinct religious identity and community.

As an American Mormon leader, Daniel Avery played a role in the organization and guidance of Latter Day Saint believers during a period marked by rapid growth, migration, and frequent conflict with surrounding communities. His leadership would have involved both spiritual and practical responsibilities, contributing to the consolidation of church structures and the support of congregants facing social, legal, and economic challenges. Avery’s activities took place against the backdrop of the movement’s relocations and the broader tensions between Latter Day Saints and other settlers in various regions of the United States. Daniel Avery, the Latter Day Saint leader, died in 1851, leaving a legacy within the early history of the Mormon faith and its expansion in nineteenth-century America.

Although they are sometimes listed together because of their shared name, Daniel Avery the New York politician (1766–1842) and Daniel Avery the Latter Day Saint leader (1798–1851) are distinct individuals whose lives illustrate two important strands of early American history: the development of state-level political institutions in New York and the rise of new religious movements, including Mormonism, in the young republic.