Nicholas Philip Trist (1800-1874), an American lawyer and diplomat, was best known as the negotiator of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war with Mexico in 1848.

Nicholas Trist was born in Charlottesville, Va., on June 2, 1800. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but did not graduate, turning instead to the law, which he studied in Thomas Jefferson's law office. He was Jefferson's private secretary (1825-1826) and married his granddaughter Virginia Jefferson Randolph. In 1829 Trist received appointment as a clerk in the Department of State, where he remained until 1833. He then went to Havana as consul, staying in that post for 8 years.

When James K. Polk became president in 1845, Trist became chief clerk of the Department of State. Two years later Polk selected him for a most delicate mission--as agent to conclude peace with Mexico, with which the United States had been at war...