List of members of the United States House of Representatives in the 1st Congress by seniority

This is a complete list of members of the United States House of Representatives during the 1st United States Congress listed by seniority. As a historical article, the districts and party affiliations listed reflect those during the 1st Congress (March 4, 1789 – March 3, 1791). Current seats and party affiliations on the List of current members of the United States House of Representatives by seniority will be different for certain members.^[a]

Seniority depends on the date on which members were sworn into office. Congressmen, in early Congresses, were often elected after the legal start of the Congress. Such representatives are attributed with unbroken seniority, from the legal start of the congressional term, if they were the first person elected to a seat in a Congress. The date of the election is indicated in a note.

The seniority date is normally taken from the members entry in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, except where the date given is the legal start of the Congress and the actual election (for someone who was not the first person elected to the seat in that Congress) was later. The date of election is taken from United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997. In a few instances the latter work provides dates, for the start and end of terms, which correct those in the Biographical Directory.

The Biographical Directory normally uses the date of a special election, as the seniority date. However, mostly in early Congresses, the date of the member taking his seat can be the one given. The date of the special election is mentioned in a note to the list below, when that date is not used as the seniority date by the Biographical Directory.

In the 1st Congress the only formal leader was the Speaker of the House. This congress had only one standing committee, the Committee on Elections, created on April 13, 1789. There was also a Ways and Means Committee for part of the 1st session. Although the Ways and Means Committee was not formally added to the list of standing committees until 1802, the present-day committee considers the one established in 1789 to be its forerunner. Committees, in this period, were appointed for a session at a time and not necessarily for every one in a Congress. Apart from the members of the Elections Committee in the 1st session (who were selected by balloting the House), the Speaker appointed the members. The office of speaker and other party or committee leadership positions in the House are often associated with seniority. However, leadership is typically not associated with seniority.

U.S. House seniority list

A numerical rank is assigned to each of the 65 members initially elected to the 1st Congress. Other members, who were not the first person elected to a seat but who joined the House during the Congress, are not assigned a number (apart from the Representatives from the two states, admitted after ratifying the constitution during the Congress, who are numbered 60-65). One Representative-elect was not sworn in, as he declined to serve. The list below includes that Representative-elect (with name in italics), with the seniority he would have held if he had been sworn in.

Rank	Representative	Party	District	Seniority date	Notes
1	Fisher Ames	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 1	March 4, 1789	Chairman: Elections (1790)
2	Abraham Baldwin	Anti-Administration	Georgia 2
3	Egbert Benson	Pro-Administration	New York 3		Elected March 3–5, 1789
4	Theodorick Bland	Anti-Administration	Virginia 9		Died June 1, 1790
5	Elias Boudinot	Pro-Administration	New Jersey at-large		Elected February 11-April 27, 1789
6	John Brown	Anti-Administration	Virginia 2
7	Aedanus Burke	Anti-Administration	South Carolina 2
8	Lambert Cadwalader	Pro-Administration	New Jersey at-large
9	Daniel Carroll	Pro-Administration	Maryland 6
10	George Clymer	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
11	Isaac Coles	Anti-Administration	Virginia 6
12	Benjamin Contee	Anti-Administration	Maryland 3
13	Thomas Fitzsimons	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large		Chairman: Ways and Means (July 24-September 17, 1789)
14	William Floyd	Anti-Administration	New York 1
15	George Gale	Pro-Administration	Maryland 5
16	Elbridge Gerry	Anti-Administration	Massachusetts 3
17	Nicholas Gilman	Pro-Administration	New Hampshire at-large
18	Benjamin Goodhue	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 2
19	Samuel Griffin	Pro-Administration	Virginia 10
20	Jonathan Grout	Anti-Administration	Massachusetts 8
21	Thomas Hartley	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
22	John Hathorn	Anti-Administration	New York 4
23	Daniel Hiester	Anti-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
24	Daniel Huger	Pro-Administration	South Carolina 3
25	Benjamin Huntington	Pro-Administration	Connecticut at-large
26	James Jackson	Anti-Administration	Georgia 1
27	John Laurance	Pro-Administration	New York 2		Elected March 3–5, 1789
28	Richard B. Lee	Pro-Administration	Virginia 4
29	George Leonard	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 7
30	Samuel Livermore	Anti-Administration	New Hampshire at-large
31	James Madison	Anti-Administration	Virginia 5
32	George Mathews	Anti-Administration	Georgia 3
33	Andrew Moore	Anti-Administration	Virginia 3
34	Frederick Muhlenberg	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large		Speaker of the House, elected April 1, 1789^[1]
35	Peter Muhlenberg	Anti-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
36	John Page	Anti-Administration	Virginia 7
37	Josiah Parker	Anti-Administration	Virginia 8
38	George Partridge	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 5		Resigned August 14, 1790
39	James Schureman	Pro-Administration	New Jersey at-large
40	Thomas Scott	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
41	Theodore Sedgwick	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 4		Elected May 11, 1789 ^[2]
42	Joshua Seney	Anti-Administration	Maryland 2
43	Roger Sherman	Pro-Administration	Connecticut at-large
44	Peter Silvester	Pro-Administration	New York 5		Elected March 3–5, 1789
45	Thomas Sinnickson	Pro-Administration	New Jersey at-large
46	William Smith	Anti-Administration	Maryland 4
47	William L. Smith	Pro-Administration	South Carolina 1
48	Michael J. Stone	Anti-Administration	Maryland 1
49	Jonathan Sturges	Pro-Administration	Connecticut at-large
50	Thomas Sumter	Anti-Administration	South Carolina 4
51	George Thatcher	Pro-Administration	Massachusetts 6
52	Jonathan Trumbull, Jr.	Pro-Administration	Connecticut at-large
53	Thomas T. Tucker	Anti-Administration	South Carolina 5
54	Jeremiah Van Rensselaer	Anti-Administration	New York 6
55	John M. Vining	Pro-Administration	Delaware at-large
56	Jeremiah Wadsworth	Pro-Administration	Connecticut at-large
57	Benjamin West	n/a	New Hampshire at-large		Representative-elect, who declined to serve, probably in May 1789 ^[3]
58	Alexander White	Pro-Administration	Virginia 1
59	Henry Wynkoop	Pro-Administration	Pennsylvania at-large
Members joining the House, after the start of the Congress
...	Abiel Foster	Pro-Administration	New Hampshire at-large	June 22, 1789
60	Hugh Williamson	Anti-Administration	North Carolina 2	March 19, 1790	Took seat from newly represented state
61	John B. Ashe	Anti-Administration	North Carolina 1	March 24, 1790	Took seat from newly represented state
62	Timothy Bloodworth	Anti-Administration	North Carolina 3	April 6, 1790
63	John Steele	Pro-Administration	North Carolina 4	April 19, 1790	Took seat from newly represented state
64	John Sevier	Pro-Administration	North Carolina 5	June 16, 1790
...	William B. Giles	Anti-Administration	Virginia 9	December 7, 1790	Special election
65	Benjamin Bourne	Pro-Administration	Rhode Island at-large	December 17, 1790	Elected August 31, 1790. Took seat from newly represented state.

Notes

^ Representatives are voting members of the United States House of Representatives and delegates are non-voting members.

References

^ "List of Speakers of the House". Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
^ United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, page 2
^ United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, page 2 and note 11 on page 3