William Plumer (1789–1854), public official and author, was born in Epping, New Hampshire, the son of TJ’s correspondent William Plumer (1759–1850). He attended the Phillips Exeter Academy, 1802–05, and graduated from Harvard University in 1809. Plumer studied law with his father before being admitted to the bar in 1812, but rarely practiced. He was appointed the federal commissioner of loans for New Hampshire, served at Portsmouth, 1816–17, and then sat successively in the lower house of the New Hampshire legislature, 1818–19, the United States House of Representatives, 1819–25, and the New Hampshire senate, 1827–29. Politically a Whig and an antislavery advocate, Plumer was an ally of Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams who declined an appointment in 1827 from the latter to become United States district attorney for New Hampshire. After returning permanently to Epping, Plumer published several works of poetry during the 1840s. He attended the 1850 New Hampshire constitutional convention and in his last years wrote a biography of his father (Andrew P. Peabody, ed., Life of William Plumer, by his son, William Plumer, Junior. Edited, with a Sketch of the Author’s Life [1856], ix–xvi; General Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Phillips Exeter Academy. 1783–1903 [1903], 14; Harvard Catalogue description begins Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1925, 1925 description ends , 187; Portsmouth Oracle, 3 Aug. 1816; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends , 3:70, 72 [16, 21 Jan. 1817]; Journal of the Senate of the State of New-Hampshire … commencing Wednesday, November 19, 1828 [1829]; Charles M. Wiltse and others, eds., The Papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence [1974–86], esp. 1:382, 7:75–7; Bela Chapin, comp., The Poets of New Hampshire [1883], 36–43; Concord New Hampshire Statesman, 23 Sept. 1854).