Representative John Henry Hobart Haws

John Henry Hobart Haws (1809 – January 27, 1858) was a United States Representative from New York and a member of the Whig Party during the antebellum period. He was born in New York City in 1809, at a time when the city was emerging as a major commercial and political center of the young republic. Raised in this urban environment, he came of age amid the rapid growth of New York’s mercantile and professional classes, a setting that shaped his subsequent legal and political career.

Haws pursued higher education at Columbia College of Columbia University in New York City, one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the United States in the early nineteenth century. He graduated in 1827, a notable achievement that placed him among the relatively small number of formally educated professionals of his generation. Following his graduation, he undertook the study of law, a common path to public life in that era, and completed the legal training required for admission to the bar.

After being admitted to the bar, Haws commenced the practice of law in New York City. His legal career unfolded against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding metropolis, where questions of commerce, property, and municipal regulation were increasingly complex. As an attorney, he would have been engaged in the kinds of civil and commercial matters typical of New York’s growing professional bar, building the experience and local standing that later supported his entry into elective office.

Haws entered national politics as a member of the Whig Party, which drew support from many of the country’s commercial and professional elites and advocated for congressional supremacy, economic development, and internal improvements. He was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-second Congress, representing New York in the U.S. House of Representatives. His term began on March 4, 1851, and continued until March 3, 1853. During this period, Congress confronted sectional tensions and debates over slavery, territorial expansion, and economic policy, though the surviving record provides limited detail on Haws’s specific committee assignments or legislative initiatives. He sought reelection in 1852 but was unsuccessful, and his service in the House concluded at the end of his first term.

Following his departure from Congress, Haws returned to private life in New York City. Consistent with the pattern of many one-term representatives of the period, he is understood to have resumed his legal practice, reengaging with the city’s professional and civic affairs. He did not again hold federal office, and there is no record of his occupying other major public positions before his death, suggesting that his principal contributions remained in the realms of law and his single term in national legislative service.

John Henry Hobart Haws died in New York City on January 27, 1858. He was initially interred in St. Stephen’s Cemetery in New York. In 1866, his remains were reinterred in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, a prominent rural cemetery that became the final resting place for many notable nineteenth-century New Yorkers. His life and career reflect the trajectory of a professionally trained New York lawyer who briefly entered the national political arena during a critical period in the nation’s history.