Representative Samuel Calvin

Samuel Calvin (July 30, 1811 – March 12, 1890) was a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. He was born in Washingtonville, Pennsylvania, and spent his early years in the region’s developing educational and civic culture. He attended the common schools and then Milton Academy, where he received the classical and literary grounding that would shape his later work as a teacher, lawyer, and public orator.

After completing his studies, Calvin entered the field of education. He taught at Huntingdon Academy in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he gained a reputation as an accomplished principal, well versed in rhetoric and elocution. Contemporary accounts describe him as an able interpreter of English literature, particularly the works of Charles Dickens, and as a man with a wide knowledge of classical literature and a refined taste for the best English authors. During this period he became known locally as a fine conversationalist and an orator of no little ability, qualities that would later aid his political career.

While teaching, Calvin studied law and prepared for admission to the bar. He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and commenced the practice of law in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. In Hollidaysburg he quickly emerged as one of the town’s leading young professionals, counted among a circle of lawyers and businessmen who would become prominent in public affairs. His legal practice, combined with his skills in public speaking and his interest in public policy—particularly the tariff—brought him increasing recognition within the Whig Party in Pennsylvania.

Calvin was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first Congress and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Pennsylvania during a significant period in American history. His service in Congress placed him in the midst of the national debates of the late 1840s and early 1850s, and he participated in the legislative process as part of the Whig delegation from his state. Although his oratorical ability and his speeches on the tariff made him prominent enough to be regarded as a leading Whig figure—at one point noted as the Whig candidate for governor in later years—he declined to be a candidate for renomination to Congress in 1850 and returned to private life.

Following his single term in Congress, Calvin resumed the practice of law in Hollidaysburg. At the same time, he remained deeply involved in local and state public affairs. He served as director of the Hollidaysburg School Board for thirty years, helping to shape the development of public education in the community. He was also appointed to the State revenue board, where he contributed to the oversight and formulation of Pennsylvania’s fiscal policies, and he served as a member of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention in 1873, participating in the revision of the state’s fundamental law.

In his personal life, Samuel Calvin married Rebecca Blodget in the early 1840s. The couple had at least two children: a daughter, Eliza, born in 1845, and a son, Mathew, born in 1847. Mathew followed his father’s example and became a lawyer, continuing the family’s professional tradition in the law. Descendants of Samuel Calvin have been recorded as living in several states, including Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and Pennsylvania, extending the family’s presence beyond the region where he had built his career.

Samuel Calvin spent his later years in Hollidaysburg, where he remained a respected figure in legal, educational, and civic circles. He died in Hollidaysburg on March 12, 1890. He was buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery, not in the Presbyterian Cemetery as was once thought, although a grandson of the same name is interred in the latter. His life and work were later recalled in local historical writings, which emphasized his intellectual breadth, his public spirit, and his role in the early civic and political development of Hollidaysburg and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.