Representative Isaiah Dunn Clawson

Isaiah Dunn Clawson (March 30, 1822 – October 9, 1879) was an American physician and Opposition Party/Republican Party politician who represented New Jersey’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1855 to 1859. He was born in Woodstown, Salem County, New Jersey, on March 30, 1822, into a community that would remain his lifelong home and the center of both his medical practice and political career.

Clawson pursued an extensive formal education for his time. He attended Delaware College in Newark, Delaware, and Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, before enrolling at Princeton College, from which he graduated in 1840. Intending to enter the medical profession, he then studied at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, one of the leading medical institutions in the country, and received his medical degree there in 1843.

Following his graduation from medical school, Clawson returned to his native Woodstown, where he commenced the practice of medicine. As a physician in a small but growing New Jersey community, he established himself professionally and became a figure of local prominence. His medical practice and engagement in local affairs helped lay the groundwork for his entry into public life, reflecting the mid-nineteenth-century pattern of community leaders moving from professional roles into elective office.

Clawson’s political career began at the state level. He was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly and served as a member in 1854. His legislative service in Trenton came at a time of rising sectional tensions and the realignment of national political parties, circumstances that would shape his subsequent congressional career. His work in the state legislature contributed to his reputation as a capable public servant and positioned him for higher office.

In the context of the fracturing of the Whig Party and the emergence of new political alignments, Clawson was elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congress. He took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 4, 1855, representing New Jersey’s 1st congressional district. As the national political landscape continued to shift, he aligned with the newly formed Republican Party and was reelected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth Congress, serving until March 3, 1859. His tenure in Congress thus spanned a critical pre–Civil War period, during which debates over slavery, territorial expansion, and sectional balance dominated the national agenda. Clawson chose not to be a candidate for renomination in 1858, thereby concluding his federal legislative service after two consecutive terms.

After leaving Congress, Clawson returned to Woodstown and resumed the practice of medicine, once again devoting himself to his profession and to the community in which he had been born and raised. He continued to live and work in Woodstown until his death there on October 9, 1879. He was interred in the Baptist Cemetery in Woodstown, New Jersey, closing a life that combined medical service with participation in state and national politics during one of the most turbulent eras in American history.