Secretary of the Ohio Company.

Served in General Henry Knox’s artillery regiment, rising to the rank of major. Surveyor of the Northwest Territory. Largest shareholder in the Ohio Company of the United States. Secretary of Ohio Territory (1788-98); often served as deputy for Governor Arthur St. Clair. Governor of Mississippi Territory (1798-1801). Keen observer and diarist; elected to the American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Massachusetts Historical Society.

Son of Winthrop and Judith (Sanders) Sargent of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Educated at Harvard (B.A. 1771). Married (1) Rowena Tupper (1789); no surviving children. Married (2) Mary McIntosh Williams (1798); two sons.