Sixth plate daguerreotype after a painting. N.p., n.d. Half leatherette case.

A fine daguerreotype after a painted portrait of Silas Wood (1769–1847), shown in bust view, gazing directly at the viewer with a composed and dignified expression. He is attired in a coat and neck cravat, reflecting the formal fashion of the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century.

A graduate of Princeton College in 1789, Wood was admitted to the bar and established his law practice in Huntington, New York. Entering politics, he was elected to represent New York’s 1st Congressional District and served in the Sixteenth through Twentieth Congresses (1819–1829). During this decade in office, he held the influential post of chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State.

In addition to his political career, Wood authored A Sketch of the Several Towns of Long-Island; with Their Political Condition to the End of the American Revolution, an early and important history of the region.

A rare and historically significant portrait of a New York statesman whose career bridged the early Republic and the formative decades of the United States.

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