Roger C. Weightman

Who was Roger C. Weightman?

Roger Chew Weightman was an American politician, civic leader, and printer. He was the mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1824 to 1827.

Weightman was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1787, moving into the new capital in 1800 and taking an apprenticeship with a local printer. Weightman bought the printing business in 1807, making him a congressional printer. He maintained a number of shops on Pennsylvania Avenue, about ten blocks from the White House, from about 1813 onward. In August 1814, Weightman was apprehended by the British troops descending on the White House during the Siege of Washington, a battle in the war of 1812, and made to march with them to the Executive Mansion. Admiral George Cockburn taunted the upstanding Washingtonian, forcing him to choose a souvenir to remember the day the American capital was defeated.

After serving seven one-year terms as an alderman on Washington's city council, the council elected Weightman in 1824 to serve out the remainder of the late mayor Samuel N. Smallwood's term. In 1826 he ran against former mayor Thomas Carbery; four years prior, Weightman had run against Carbery for mayor and lost by a narrow margin, but had then pressed the matter in court in a legal battle that lasted until the end of Carbery's term. In 1824, Weightman won more decisively by the use of blustery promises and insults against his opponent. One handbill from the era reads,