Benjamin A. Bidlack

Benjamin Alden Bidlack (September 8, 1804 – February 6, 1849) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Alden Bidlack was born in Paris, New York. He moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended the public schools. He graduated from the Wilkes-Barre Academy, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1825 and commenced practice in Wilkes-Barre. He was elected district attorney of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in 1825. He moved to Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1830, and served as Pike County treasurer in 1834. He returned to Wilkes-Barre, and was elected a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1835 and 1836. He was editor of the Republican Farmer and the Democratic Journal in Wilkes-Barre.

Bidlack was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Congresses. He was appointed Chargé d'Affaires to Colombia on May 14, 1845. He successfully negotiated a “treaty of peace, amity, and navigation” with Colombia and secured for the United States the right to build a canal or railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. He died in Bogotá, Colombia in 1849, aged 44. He was interred in the English Cemetery.

Sources

• United States Congress. "Benjamin A. Bidlack (id: B000445)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard