Representative Elisha Phelps

Elisha Phelps (November 16, 1779 – April 6, 1847) was a United States representative from Connecticut and a prominent state legislator and public official in the early nineteenth century. He was born in Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut, the son of Noah Phelps, a Revolutionary War officer and public figure, and later became the father of John Smith Phelps, who served as a United States representative from Missouri and governor of that state. Raised in a family active in public affairs, Phelps grew up in a community that was then part of Connecticut’s agrarian and commercial heartland, influences that helped shape his later legal and political career.

Phelps pursued a rigorous education, graduating from Yale College in 1800. He subsequently studied law at the Litchfield Law School, one of the earliest and most influential formal law schools in the United States, which trained many future leaders of the bench and bar. After completing his legal studies, he was admitted to the bar in 1803 and commenced the practice of law in his native Simsbury. His legal work, combined with his family’s standing, quickly brought him into local public life and laid the foundation for his entry into state politics.

Phelps’s political career began in the Connecticut House of Representatives, where he served multiple nonconsecutive terms. He was a member of the House in 1807, 1812, and from 1814 to 1818, participating in state governance during a period of significant political realignment and the gradual decline of the Federalist Party in New England. His legislative service coincided with debates over religious establishment, suffrage, and constitutional reform in Connecticut, and he became associated with the emerging Toleration movement that sought broader religious and political inclusion.

In national politics, Phelps was elected as a Toleration Republican to the Sixteenth Congress, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1819, to March 3, 1821. After this initial term in Congress, he returned to state service and was again a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1821, where he was chosen speaker, reflecting his growing influence and leadership within the legislature. He then advanced to the upper chamber of the state legislature, serving in the Connecticut Senate from 1822 to 1824, a period during which Connecticut continued to adjust its institutions to the new state constitution adopted in 1818.

Phelps reentered national office when he was elected as an Adams candidate—aligned with the supporters of John Quincy Adams—to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1825, to March 3, 1829. In these terms he sat in the House during the contentious era that saw the rise of Andrew Jackson and the fracturing of the old Democratic-Republican coalition. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1828, choosing instead to resume a more active role in Connecticut affairs. He returned once more to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1829, again serving as speaker, and later held another term in the House in 1835, maintaining a long-standing presence in the state’s legislative life.

Beyond legislative service, Phelps held important executive and administrative positions in Connecticut. He served as Connecticut comptroller from 1831 to 1837, overseeing aspects of the state’s financial administration during a period of economic expansion and increasing public works activity. In 1835 he was appointed a commissioner to revise and codify the state laws, a responsibility that placed him at the center of efforts to modernize and systematize Connecticut’s legal framework. His work in this capacity reflected both his legal training and his long experience in public office.

In the late 1830s, Phelps sought higher executive office at the state level. In 1838 and 1839, he ran under a Conservative banner for governor of Connecticut, representing a faction that resisted some of the more sweeping changes advocated by emerging political groups. Both of his gubernatorial campaigns were unsuccessful, and he did not attain the governorship. Nevertheless, his candidacies underscored his continued prominence in state politics and his alignment with more moderate and traditional elements within Connecticut’s evolving party system.

Elisha Phelps spent his life closely tied to his hometown of Simsbury. He died there on April 6, 1847, and was buried in Hop Meadow Cemetery in Simsbury. His residence, which he built in 1820, later became known as the Amos Eno House after a subsequent owner. The house still stands in Simsbury and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, serving as a tangible reminder of Phelps’s presence in the community and of the era in which he lived and served.