John Rhea

John Rhea (pronounced ray ) (c. 1753 – May 27, 1832) was an American soldier and politician of the early 19th century who represented Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives. Rhea County, Tennessee and Rheatown, a community and former city in Greene County, Tennessee is named for him.

Early years

Rhea was born in the parish of Langhorn, County Londonderry in the Kingdom of Ireland. His family immigrated to Pennsylvania when he was 16, settling in Philadelphia. His father, Rev. Joseph Rhea, a Presbyterian minister, moved the family to Piney Creek, Maryland in 1771. They moved again in 1778 to what is now eastern Tennessee (then in North Carolina).

Several biographies of Rhea include statements to the effect that "Rhea completed his preparatory studies in 1780, and entered Princeton College." However while there was a Princeton graduate around this time by the name of John Rhea, the Princeton biographical dictionary maintains that he was a different person than the Tennessee congressman. In an extended footnote the editors of Princetonians wrote, "much evi dence suggests that the 1780 graduate was not the future congressman. Born in 1753, this John Rhea was somewhat older than the students in the Class of 1780. He was an ensign in a Va. unit for most of 1777, the year he is said to have come to Princeton. In April 1779 he was a staff officer to Col. Evan Shelby in the western campaign against the Chickamaugas. In 1780 he was not 'of Pennsylvania' but a resident of newly-created Sullivan Cnty., N.C. (subsequently Tenn.), serving as the county's first clerk from February of that year. Also said to have been at the Battle of Kings Mountain in S.C. on 7 Oct 1780, this John Rhea is unlikely to have re ceived a degree at Princeton, New Jersey on 27 Sep 1780. Finally, the Tenn. congress man was still alive in 1830 when the triennial catalogue of that year first indicated the death o£ the 1780 graduate; and the graduate's name was not capitalized in any catalogue between 1780 and 1830, although capitalization was the customary method of designating graduates who held important state and federal offices."

Career

He served in the Patriot militia that defeated a loyalist force at the Battle of Kings Mountain in October 1780; he reportedly also served as Ensign in the Fifth Virginia Regiment of Continentals at the Battle of Brandywine.

Rhea became clerk of the Sullivan County Court in the proposed State of Franklin, and subsequently in North Carolina, from 1785 to 1790. He was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, and served as a delegate from Sullivan County to the Fayetteville Convention that ratified the Federal Constitution in 1789. He then studied law and was admitted to bar in 1789. In 1796, he was a delegate to the constitutional convention of Tennessee and also the attorney general of Greene County. At the same time he was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for two years.

Rhea was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eighth Congress and the five succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1803 until March 3, 1815. During the Tenth through the Thirteenth Congress, he was the chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads. He was a member of the Committee on Pensions and Revolutionary War Claims during the Fifteenth Congress through the Seventeenth Congress.

He was appointed United States commissioner to treat with the Choctaw Nation in 1816. Afterward, he again became a U.S. Representative, serving from March 4, 1817 until March 3, 1823 in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Congresses. He was actively connected with higher education in Tennessee, serving as one of the founders of Blount College, which later became the University of Tennessee.

He retired from active pursuits and resided on Rhea plantation near Blountville, Sullivan County, Tennessee, where he died on May 27, 1832. He was interred in Blountville Cemetery.

He was remembered in a Rhea family history as "a Jeffersonian democrat and a friend of Andrew Jackson. He died, unmarried, and left a very large estate in lands, much of which had been Government grants for special services rendered."

Rhea County, Tennessee; Rheatown, Tennessee; and Rhea Springs, Tennessee; was named in his honor.