Abel Parker Upshur was an American lawyer, planter, judge, and politician from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Active in Virginia state politics for decades, with a brother and a nephew who became distinguished U.S. Navy officers, Judge Upshur left the Virginia bench to become the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of State during the administration of President John Tyler, a fellow Virginian. He negotiated the treaty that led to the 1845 Texas annexation to the United States and helped ensure that it was admitted as a slave state. Upshur died on February 28, 1844, when a gun on the warship USSÂ Princeton exploded during a demonstration.
Abel P. Upshur
United States Secretary of the Navy
The secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer and the head of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense.
United States Secretary of the Navy
Image: Gilbert Stuart, John Adams, c. 1800 1815, NGA 42933
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Image: Silas Deane Du Simitier and B.L. Prevost