Theodore Sedgwick (May 9, 1746 – January 24, 1813) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served in elected state government and as a delegate to the Continental Congress, a U.S. representative, and a senator from Massachusetts.

His paternal immigrant ancestor Major General Robert Sedgwick arrived in 1636 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as part of the Great Migration.

Among the prospective attorneys who learned the law in his office was Stephen Jacob, who later served on the Vermont Supreme Court.

During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the Continental Army as a major, and took part in the expedition to Canada and the Battle of White Plains in 1776.

Bett was a black slave who had escaped from her master, Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, because of cruel treatment by his wife.

Bett marked her freedom by taking the name of Elizabeth Freeman, and she chose to work for wages at the Sedgwick household, where she helped rear their several children.

The family marked Freeman's grave with an inscribed monument, and it is beside that of their fourth child, writer Catharine Maria.

[6] In 1789 Sedgwick was elected as Representative to Congress from Massachusetts' first congressional district, and also unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate that year[7][8].

Sedgwick was nine years younger than John Adams, a 1780 delegate to the Second Continental Congress, attorney and state and federal politician.

When Sedgwick learned of the appointment and mission of the emissaries, "he wrote of the 'vain, jealous, and half frantic mind' of John Adams, a man ruled 'by caprice alone.

She was the daughter of Brigadier General Joseph Dwight of Great Barrington and his second wife, the widow Abigail Williams Sargent.

[1] The Sedgwicks had ten children, three of which died within a year of birth, reflecting the high infant mortality rate of the time.

They were:[1][13] During the marriage, Sedgwick frequently left his wife and children at their home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts while he focused on building his political career.

[23][24] While on his death bed, Sedgwick converted to Unitarianism with his daughter Catharine Maria and William Ellery Channing in attendance.