Return Jonathan Meigs Jr. (17 November 1764 – 29 March 1825) was a US Senator from Ohio from 12 December 1808 to 8 December 1810 (succeeding John Smith and preceding Thomas Worthington), Governor of Ohio from 8 December 1810 to 24 March 1814 (succeeding Samuel Huntington and preceding Othniel Looker), and US Postmaster General from 17 March 1814 to 26 June 1823 (succeeding Gideon Granger and preceding John McLean). He was a Democratic-Republican.
Biography[]
Return Jonathan Meigs Jr. was born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1764, the son of Return J. Meigs Sr.. He became a lawyer in 1788, and he followed his father to Marietta, Ohio that same year. In 1794, Meigs Jr. became the town's first postmaster, and he served in the Northwest Territory House of Representatives from 1799 to 1801, representing Washington County. From 1803 to 1804, he served as Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, and, in 1808, he was appointed to finish John Smith's term in the US Senate. He went on to serve as Governor of Ohio from 1810 to 1814, when he resigned in order to serve as Postmaster General under President James Madison. He died in 1825.