Alexander Contee Hanson (February 27, 1786April 23, 1819) was an American lawyer, publisher, and statesman. He represented the third district of Maryland in the U.S. House, and the state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate. Early life Alexander Contee Hanson was born in Annapolis, Maryland, on February 27, 1786, the second son of Alexander Contee Hanson, Sr. (1749-1806) and Rebecca Howard (ca. 1760–1806). His older brother, Charles W. Hanson, later became a judge in Baltimore. His younger sister, Mary Jane Hanson (1791–1815), was married to Thomas Peabody Grosvenor (1778–1817), a U.S. Representative from New York. He attended local private schools and graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis in 1802. Family He was the grandson of John Hanson (1721–1783), a delegate to the Continental Congress who signed the Articles of Confederation and served as the 9th President of the Continental Congress, and Jane Contee (1726–1812), herself the granddaughter of Thomas Brooke, Jr. (1660–1730). Through his paternal grandmother's brother, Thomas Contee (1729-1793), he was related to Benjamin Contee (1755–1815) and Thomas Contee Worthington (1782–1847), William Grafton Delaney Worthington (1785–1856), and Walter Brooke Cox Worthington (1795–1845). His cousin, Rebecca Thomas (1777-1814), was married to another cousin, Alexander Contee Magruder (c. 1779–1853). Career He proceeded to study law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Annapolis. He was a delegate to the Maryland State Convention of 1788, to vote whether Maryland should ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. From 1811 to 1815, he served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. Federal Republican Hanson launched the Federal Republican and Commercial Gazette in Baltimore in 1808 and merged it with another publication the following year. The Federal Republican was known as one of the nation's most extreme Federalist newspapers. On June 22, 1812, four days after the beginning of the War of 1812, a mob that was irritated by his articles denouncing the administration destroyed his office. On July 28, he reissued the paper from another building, where he was joined by a group of armed allies. When that building was besieged by a mob, Hanson and his group fired, killing two. On the morning of July 29, Hanson and his group surrendered to Mayor Edward Johnson, who had come to personally defuse the situation, and were escorted to jail. That evening, the mob stormed the jail, and Hanson was beaten and left for dead. James M. Lingan,