Samuel Riker (1743-1823)
of Newtown, Long Island; U.S. Congressman from New York
He was born at Bowery Bay, New York, and after serving an apprenticeship in a mercantile business returned to the family home which he would later purchase. He was a brother of Dr. John Berrien Riker who is immortalised in John Trumbull's painting, Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, in which he is seen saving the life of future President James Monroe. In 1774, he was on Newtown's Committee of Correspondence when the British invaded Long Island. In 1776, he was commissioned 1st Lieutenant in Captain Daniel Lawrence's Troop of Light Horse in the Queens County New York Militia. He was captured and held prisoner after the Battle of Long Island (1776). After the war, he entered public life and for several years was Supervisor of Newtown. He was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1784 and represented New York in the U.S. Congress from 1807 to 1809. In 1769, he married Anna, daughter of Joseph Lawrence, first cousin of Bishop Benjamin Moore, President of Columbia College, and a niece of New York Senator Jonathan Lawrence (who married Samuel's sister, Ruth). They had 9-children.
