22 Feb. 1791–1869
During the legislative sessions of 1823, 1824, and 1825 Polk represented Mecklenburg County in the House of Commons. About 1826 he moved to Salisbury and there married Mary Eloise Trotter; they became the parents of Mary Adelaide (Mrs. George Davis), Jane (Mrs. A. Buchelle), William, Richard, Emily C., and Thomas G. In Salisbury, Polk represented Rowan County in the House of Commons in the sessions of 1829, 1830, 1831, and 1832, during which he earned a reputation as an effective public speaker. He was one of three candidates for governor in 1832, but since none of the three received a majority of the vote, the legislature elected David L. Swain. Polk reentered public life as the state senator from Rowan County for the terms 1835 and 1836.
He also was a member of the board of trustees of The University of North Carolina during the period 1831–39. His retirement from that board followed his move to La Grange, Tenn., in 1838, where he remained only a short while before settling in Holly Springs, Miss. The 1840 census there indicates that he enslaved eighty people. Thereafter he declined an opportunity to become a candidate for governor of Mississippi.
During the War with Mexico he was recommended for appointment as a brigadier general and consented to serve, but his cousin, President James K. Polk, declined to permit the appointment because of their family relationship. The last known official record of him occurs in the 1860 census, when he was a resident of the city of Holly Springs, Miss., and identified as a farmer owning extensive real estate and personal property.