William Eustis (10 June 1753 – 6 February 1825) was a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-MA 8) from 4 March 1801 to 3 March 1803 (succeeding Harrison Gray Otis and preceding Lemuel Williams), from MA-1 from 4 March 1803 to 3 March 1805 (succeeding John Bacon and preceding Josiah Quincy III), and from MA-13 from 21 August 1820 to 3 March 1823 (succeeding Edward Dowse and preceding John Reed Jr.); US Secretary of War from 7 March 1809 to 13 January 1813 (succeeding Henry Dearborn and preceding John Armstrong Jr.); and Governor of Massachusetts from 21 May 1823 to 6 February 1825 (succeeding John Brooks and preceding Marcus Morton).
Biography[]
William Eustis was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1753, and he befriended Aaron Burr while serving alongside him in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After the war, he opened a medical practice in Boston and served in the militia during the suppression of Shays' Rebellion in 1787. Eustis served on the Massachusetts General Court from 1788 to 1794 and in the US House of Representatives from 1801 to 1805, marking himself as a moderate Democratic-Republican who opposed Thomas Jefferson's reduction of the number of seats on the federal bench. He went on to serve as Secretary of War from 1809 to 1813, and he made modest moves to increase military readiness in the years leading up to the War of 1812. He resigned following William Hull's surrender of Detroit at the start of thew ar, and he was replaced by John Armstrong Jr.. From 1814 to 1818, he served as minister to the Netherlands, and he renewed his friendship with the Marquis de Lafayette while he was in Europe. He went on to return to the House from 1820 to 1823, and he supported the ability of freed African-Americans to settle in Missouri. Eustis served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1823 to 1825, and he died in office.