Joseph Calhoun (October 22, 1750April 14, 1817) was a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

member of the

South Carolina House of Representatives The South Carolina House of Representatives is the lower house of the South Carolina General Assembly. It consists of 124 representatives elected to two-year terms at the same time as U.S. congressional elections. Unlike many legislatures, seatin ...

(1804–1805) and represented

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

(1807–1811). Born in Staunton in the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

, he moved with his father to the

Province of South Carolina The Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of the Kingdom of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the Thirteen Colonies i ...

in 1756 and settled in Granville District, on Little River, near the present town of

Abbeville Abbeville (; ; ) is a commune in the Somme department and in Hauts-de-France region in northern France. It is the of one of the arrondissements of Somme. Located on the river Somme, it was the capital of Ponthieu. Geography Location A ...

. Received a limited education and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1804 and 1805 and was a colonel of the state militia. In 1807 he was elected as a Republican to the

10th United States Congress The 10th United States Congress was a meeting of the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate, Senate and the United States House of Representatives, House of Repr ...

to fill the vacancy for the 6th congressional district caused by the death of Levi Casey and was sworn in on June 2, 1807. He was re-elected to the 11th Congress and served until March 3, 1811. He declined to be a candidate for re-election in 1810 and was succeeded by his first cousin

John C. Calhoun John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. Born in South Carolina, he adamantly defended American s ...

. He was also a cousin of both John C. Calhoun's wife, Floride and father-in-law, John E. Colhoun. Calhoun returned to his agricultural pursuits and engaged in milling. He died in Calhoun Mills, Abbeville District (now Mount Carmel, South Carolina), and was buried there in the family cemetery.

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1750 births 1817 deaths Politicians from Staunton, Virginia American people of Scotch-Irish descent Calhoun family 18th-century American planters Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century members of the South Carolina General Assembly {{Virginia-politician-stub