Very little is known about Matthias Bernard Hildreth, who holds the distinction of being the first person to serve as Attorney General of New York in two separate terms.
Serving as the 9th Attorney General from 1808 to 1810, he worked during a period when New York was under Governor George Clinton’s leadership and the United States was edging toward the War of 1812.
Hildreth returned for his second term as the 11th Attorney General in 1811 under Daniel D. Tompkins, just a year before his untimely death.
Hildreth was born in 1774 in Southampton on Long Island. His family moved to Johnstown in the Mohawk Valley in 1797 and his father James Hildreth (d. 1818) became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County.
Few details of Hildreth’s life are available but he appears to have studied law and been admitted to the bar because he is listed in several local histories of Montgomery County as a member of the legal profession.
The Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment of the State of New York indicate that he was appointed lieutenant of a company of grenadiers in the Montgomery County militia in 1797.
He was politically active, voting for Thomas Jefferson and George Clinton. Hildreth served as a presidential elector for Jefferson in 1804, when the incumbent Democratic-Republican President won a landslide victory against Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
(This was the first presidential election to be conducted under the terms of the 12th Amendment, which created separate ballots for president and vice president.)
In 1808, Hildreth married Ann Rust (ca. 1769-1821) with whom he had two children: James Tallmage Hildreth (1809–1857) and Catherine Mary Hildreth (b. 1811).
Hildreth’s career unfolded during a turbulent time in both state and national politics. His legal work and political career unfolded amid the rise of Democratic-Republican ideals, with the state grappling with the political and economic tensions of the early 19th century.
After his untimely death at the age of 38 he was buried in Colonial Cemetery in Johnstown, now in Fulton County, New York.
Illustration: Matthias B. Hildreth’s tombstone in Johnstown.
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