Benjamin Hardin

Who was Benjamin Hardin?

Benjamin Hardin was a United States Representative from Kentucky. Martin Davis Hardin was his cousin. He was born at the Georges Creek settlement on the Monongahela River, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania and then moved with his parents to Washington County, Kentucky in 1788. Hardin attended the schools of Nelson and Washington Counties, Kentucky before studying law. He was admitted to the bar in 1806 and commenced practice in Elizabethtown and Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky and he settled in Bardstown, Kentucky in 1808.

Hardin was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1810, 1811, 1824, and 1825 and served in the Kentucky Senate 1828–1832. He was elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress and reelected as a Republican to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses. He was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses.

After leaving Congress, Hardin served as the Secretary of State of Kentucky 1844–1847. He served as a member of the Kentucky constitutional convention in 1849. He died in Bardstown, Kentucky in 1852 and was buried in the family burying ground near Springfield, Kentucky.