Joel Barlow Sutherland

Who was Joel Barlow Sutherland?

Joel Barlow Sutherland was a Jacksonian member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Joel B.Sutherland was born in Gloucester County, New Jersey. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1812. He served in the War of 1812 as assistant surgeon to the “Junior Artillerists of Philadelphia,” transferred to the line, and was appointed in 1814 lieutenant colonel of rifles in the State militia. He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1813 to 1816. He was a founder of Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia. He served in the Pennsylvania State Senate in 1816 and 1817. He later abandoned medicine for the practice of law.

Sutherland elected as a Jacksonian to the Twentieth and to the four succeeding Congresses. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Commerce during the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses. He was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for reelection in 1836 to the Twenty-fifth Congress and for election in 1838 to the Twenty-sixth Congress. He served as associate judge of the court of common pleas of Philadelphia in 1833 and 1834. He died in Philadelphia in 1861. Interment in the Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church Cemetery.