Hugh J. Anderson

Hugh J. Anderson was born in Wiscasset (in modern-day Maine, then a part of Massachusetts) on May 10, 1801. He attended the local schools, moved to Belfast, Maine in 1815, and was employed as a clerk in his uncle's mercantile business.

In 1827 Anderson was elected clerk of courts for Waldo County. A Democrat, Anderson was elected to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1837 to March 3, 1841. He was not a candidate for reelection to the Twenty-seventh Congress in 1840. From 1844 to 1847 Anderson was the Governor of Maine. He was a candidate for U.S. Senator in 1847 but subsequently withdrew and moved to Washington D.C., where he served as commissioner of customs in the United States Treasury Department 1853-1858; appointed head of the commission to reorganize and adjust the affairs of the United States Mint at San Francisco, Calif., in 1857; returned to Washington 1859. Sixth Auditor of the Treasury 1866-1869; retired from public life in 1880 and returned to Portland, Maine where he died May 31, 1881.^[1][2]

His father, John Anderson, was a native of County Down, Ireland; and his grandfather, also John Anderson was a prominent and influential member of the Scottish Protestant colony in that part of [Ireland. His father immigrated to Maine 1789.^[3]

Anderson married Martha J. Drummer of Belfast, Maine, in 1832.

The couple had six children:

• John F. Anderson, officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, attained the rank of brigadier general by brevet.
• Hannah Anderson (no records of marriage found).
• William H. Anderson
• Joseph Anderson
• Horace Anderson (Age 10 in the 1850 census of Belfast, Maine.)
• Thomas Anderson

He lost two sons before he died, and his wife followed him several months after his death. Interment in Grove Cemetery, Belfast, Maine.

• United States Congress. "Hugh J. Anderson (id: A000190)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.