William Jackson

                William Jackson’s main claim to fame is the fact that he served as the secretary to the U.S. Constitutional Convention.  He also served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and did so with distinction.  Following the war, he was one of President George Washington’s personal secretaries.

                Jackson was born on March 9, 1759, in the county of Cumberland in England and was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, following the death of his parents.  He was reared by Owen Roberts, a family friend and prominent merchant.  Roberts was also the commander of a militia battalion and joined the Patriot cause of liberty after the war broke out in 1775.  Jackson was only a teenager, but he followed his benefactor.  He probably benefitted from his relationship with Roberts because he became a cadet in the First South Carolina Regiment and was commissioned a second lieutenant in May 1776.

                Lieutenant Jackson saw his first action near Charleston in June 1776 in a battle against British General Sir Henry Clinton’s attempted attack on Fort Sullivan.  After fighting off the British, his regiment garrisoned Charleston for a long period of time; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney became the commander of the First South Carolina during this time.  Jackson’s detachment had the unfortunate luck to be “part of the detachment that made an ill-conceived and worse conducted expedition against St. Augustine in British East Florida under Major-General Robert Howe.  The expedition was a colossal failure, and the American force was struck down by disease.  Jackson survived and returned to South Carolina in 1778.”

                Sometime after Jackson returned to South Carolina, Major-General Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts assumed command of the Southern regiments.   Pinckney convinced Lincoln (a Northerner) that Jackson could assist Lincoln in relating better with his Southern troops.  Jackson was promoted to the rank of Major temporarily.  As an aide to Lincoln, Jackson “saw action in the Battle of Stono Ferry and the Siege of Savannah in 1779.  In 1780 General Lincoln surrendered his troops after the lengthy Siege of Charleston.  As a captured officer, Jackson was shipped to Philadelphia to be held by the British.  He was part of an exchange of prisoners and returned to the Continental Army after a few months.

                Jackson was a “skilled staff officer” and was assigned to the staff of General Washington; as such, he served as secretary to John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens of South Carolina and aide to General Washington.  Laurens took Jackson with him when he “was sent to France in 1781 to buy supplies with money loaned by the French Government.  “Laurens returned to America after a short and undiplomatic stay in France;” upon his departure, Jackson took over the job.  When he made “extensive purchases, beyond his budget” with money reserved to pay unpaid bills, Benjamin Franklin and Jackson had “a discussion.”

                Upon Jackson’s return to America in February 1782, he became assistant secretary of war to Benjamin Lincoln.  “The Confederation’s Department of War, like the British, was a financial liaison with the Army; Jackson helped settle the Pennsylvania Mutiny in 1783.”  He resigned his office and commission in October 1783 and became an agent for Robert Morris in England for a year.  After his return to America, he studied law with William Lewis, a lawyer in Philadelphia.

                Even though he had little money, Jackson wrote to George Washington in 1787 to apply for the position of secretary to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.  Alexander Hamilton nominated Jackson to the position on May 25, 1787, the first business day of the Convention; the delegates chose Jackson over William Temple Franklin, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who had served as secretary to his grandfather during the negotiations of the Treaty of Paris.

                Jackson’s duties as secretary of the Convention included maintaining the secrecy of the proceedings of the Convention, keeping official minutes, and destroying many of the other records kept at the Convention.  He signed the Constitution of the United States “Attest William Jackson Secretary” to “attest to the delegates’ signing” of the document.  By doing so, Jackson became the fortieth signer of the document.

                Following the Convention, Jackson was sent to the Congress of the Confederation, which was assembled in New York City; there he read the document to Congress “just days after the signing, on September 20, 1787.”

                Jackson was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1788 but waited two years, according to the customs of the day, to practice before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.  He was also a volunteer with the Second Philadelphia Light Horse unit.  He applied for the position of secretary to the U.S. Senate but was not selected; then he applied for the position of personal secretary to President George Washington.  In his letter of application, he wrote that “he had unpaid expenses as a Continental officer, and that business was `not congenial to [his] temper.’”

                Resigning as Washington’s secretary in 1791, Jackson restarted his law practice and became an agent for William Bingham and Henry Knox (then Secretary of War).  Bingham and Knox “were selling off a large land grant in Maine.”  “Jackson’s job was selling land on commission in England and France; among his potential customers was the Committee of Public Safety.  They declined to invest their scanty funds in Maine land, but that did not keep Jackson from writing a very favorable report about them back to the United States.

                Jackson returned to the United States in the summer of 1795 and married Elizabeth Willing, the sister of Mrs. Bingham, in November of that year.  Elizabeth and Mrs. Bingham were the oldest daughters of Thomas Willing, who was a rich merchant in Philadelphia and related to the Shippens.  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson attended the wedding.  After his marriage, Jackson became “a leader of society" with “Charleston manners” and the wealth of his father-in-law. 

                Jackson was appointed as Collector for the Port of Philadelphia in January 1796, just months before Washington left office; he was dismissed by Jefferson in 1801 “for politicizing his office.”  He started the Political and Commercial Register, a Federalist newspaper, in Philadelphia and continued to edit it until 1815.  In 1799 he became president of the Society of the Cincinnati, a group of former Continental Army officers, and in 1816 led an “unsuccessful effort to lobby Congress to grant half-pay for life for all veteran Revolutionary officers.”  In 1826, fifty years after our nation achieved independence, Congress passed a similar bill, but Jackson was not connected to it.  Jackson “remained titular president of the Cincinnati until his death.”

                The last public appearance of William Jackson was to welcome the Marquis de Lafayette to Philadelphia in 1824.  He passed away on either the 17^th or the 18^th of December 1828 in Philadelphia at age 69.

Gouverneur Morris

                Gouverneur Morris was a statesman who became a Founding Father of the United States of America.  He signed the Articles of Confederation; he also signed the U.S. Constitution after writing large sections of the document as well as its Preamble.  Morris advanced the idea of being a “citizen of a single union of states” when most Americans considered themselves as “citizens of their respective states.” 

Morris was born on January 31, 1752, in New York City, New York.  He was a “gifted scholar” that entered King’s College (now Columbia College of Columbia University) in New York City in 1764 at age 12.  He graduated in 1768 and went on to receive a Master’s degree in 1771.

                Morris began his political career when he was elected on May 8, 1775, to represent his family estate in southern Westchester County (now Bronx County) in the New York Provincial Congress.  Most of the delegates to this congress, including Morris, “concentrated on turning the colony into an independent state,” an advocacy that was in direct opposition to his family and his mentor, William Smith.  Morris was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1777-78.

                In August 1776, after the Battle of Long Island, the British seized New York City and the Morris family estate across the Harlem River from Manhattan.  His mother gave the estate to the British Army for military purposes.

                Taking his appointed seat in the Continental Congress on January 28, 1778, Morris “was immediately selected to a committee in charge of coordinating reforms of the military with George Washington.  After witnessing the army encamped at Valley Forge, he was so appalled by the conditions of the troops that he became the spokesman for the Continental Army in Congress, and subsequently helped enact substantial reforms in its training, methods, and financing.  He also signed the Articles of Confederation in 1778.”

                Morris lost his campaign for re-election to Congress in 1779, probably because his advocacy for a strong central government was opposed to the views of those he represented.  He did not let defeat bother him; he simply moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to open a law office and become a merchant.

                In 1780, Morris had the unfortunate situation of shattering his left leg and having it replaced with a wooden peg leg.  There is some question about how the leg got shattered.  He said “it happened in a carriage accident, but there is evidence” that his story was to hide the possibility that he jumped from a window in order to escape the wrath of a jealous husband.  “Morris was well known throughout much of his life for having many affairs, with both married and unmarried women, and he recorded many of these adventures and misadventures in his diary.”  His shattered leg gave him an exemption from military duty but so did his legislative service.  After his accident he joined “a special `briefs’ club for the protection of New York City, a forerunner of the modern New York Guard.”

                Morris worked as a merchant in Philadelphia; there he became interested in financial affairs and worked with Robert Morris (no relation).  He was appointed assistant superintendent of finance (1781-1785).  Robert Morris and George Washington recommended that he attend the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

                During the convention held in Philadelphia, he was a “friend and ally of George Washington and others who favored a strong central government.”  He served with four other men on a committee charged with “drafting the final language of the proposed constitution.”  He did, in fact, write most of the draft and the “final polished form” of the United States Constitution.  He gave a total of 173 speeches at the convention, more than any other delegate.  “As a matter of principle, he often vigorously defended the right of anyone to practice his chosen religion without interference, and he argued to include such language in the Constitution.”  He was one of the few delegates to speak openly against domestic slavery.  James Madison, who kept notes of the convention, wrote that Morris spoke against slavery on August 8, 1787:  “He [Gouverneur Morris] never would concur in upholding domestic slavery.  It was a nefarious institution.  It was the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed….”

                Gouverneur Morris was “an aristocrat to the core” who believed that “there never was, nor ever will be a civilized Society without an Aristocracy.”  He thought that “common people were incapable of self-government because he feared that the poor would sell their votes to the rich.  Consequently, he thought that voting should be restricted to property owners.”  He “opposed admitting new western states on an equal basis with the existing eastern states, fearing that the interior wilderness could not furnish `enlightened’ statesmen to the country.”

                Morris moved his residence back to New York in 1788 and traveled to France on business in 1789.  He served as Minister Plenipotentiary to France from 1792 to 1794.  He kept “a valuable chronicle of the French Revolution” in his diaries and captured “much of the turbulence and violence of that era, as well as documenting his affairs with women there.  Unlike Thomas Jefferson, Morris was far more critical of the French Revolution and considerably more sympathetic to the deposed queen consort, Marie Antoinette.”

                In 1798 Morris returned to the United States and was elected in 1800 to the United States Senate after James Watson resigned.  He served from May 3, 1800, to March 3, 1803, but he failed to win re-election in February 1803.

                Morris left the U.S. Senate and became Chairman of the Erie Canal Commission (1810-1813).   “The Erie Canal helped to transform New York City into a financial capital, the possibilities of which were apparent to Morris when he said `the proudest empire in Europe is but a bubble compared to what America will be, must be, in the course of two centuries, perhaps of one.’  There have been publishers who have described Morris’ religious affiliation as deism.”

                When he was 57, Morris married Anne Cary (“Nancy”) Randolph.  Nancy was the sister of Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. who was married to Martha Jefferson Randolph, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson.  Morris and Nancy had one son, Gouverneur Morris Jr., who became a railroad executive.

                Gouverneur was not the only member of his family to become famous.  His half-brother, Lewis Morris (1726-1798) signed the Declaration of Independence.  Another half-brother, Staats Long Morris was a loyalist and served in the British Army during the American Revolution as a major-general.  A nephew, Lewis Richard Morris, served in the Vermont legislature and in the U.S. Congress.  A grandnephew was William M. Meredith, United States Secretary of the Treasury under Zachary Taylor.  A great-grandson named Gouverneur (1876-1953) wrote novels and short stories during the early-twentieth century. 

                Gouverneur Morris died November 6, 1816, at the family estate “Morrisania” in New York City, New York, at age 64.  He “died after sticking a piece of whale bone through his urinary tract to relieve a blockage.  He was buried at St. Ann’s Church in The Bronx.

                An important landowner in northern New York, Morris has the honor of having the Town of Gouverneur and Village of Gouverneur in St. Lawrence County named for him.  The SS Gouverneur Morris, a United States liberty ship, was launched in 1943 but scrapped in 1974.

James Wilson

                James Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilson signed both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.  He was born on September 14, 1742, in Carskerdo, Fife, Scotland.  He was one of seven children born to William Wilson and Alison Landall, Presbyterian farmers. 

Wilson attended the University of St. Andrews on a scholarship; for two years after graduating from the university he studied Scottish Enlightenment thinkers.  He immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (still British America) carrying valuable letters of introduction as well as the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment.  He begin tutoring and then taught at The Academy and College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania.  A few months later and as a result of his petition, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts.

                Not long afterwards Wilson started studying law with John Dickinson; two years later he passed the bar in Philadelphia and set up his own successful law practice in Reading, Pennsylvania a year after passing the bar.  As a successful lawyer, he soon earned a small fortune and owned a small farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  He took cases from eight local counties and lectured at The Academy and College of Philadelphia.

                Wilson married Rachel Bird, daughter of William Bird and Bridget Hulings on November 5, 1771.  Six children were born to the couple:  Mary, William, Bird, James, Emily and Charles.  Rachel passed away in 1786, and Wilson married Hannah Gray, daughter of Ellis Gray and Sarah D-Olbear and widow of Thomas Bartlett, M.D., in 1793.  This couple had one son, Henry who died at age three.

                Joining the patriot cause of liberty, Wilson published a pamphlet entitled “Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament” in 1774.  “In this pamphlet, Wilson argued that the Parliament had no authority to pass laws for the American colonies because the colonies had no representation in Parliament.  It presented his views that all power derived from the people.  Though considered by scholars on par with the seminal works of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams of the same year, it was actually penned in 1768, perhaps the first cogent argument to be formulated against British dominance.”

                Wilson was commissioned Colonel of the 4^th Cumberland County Battalion in 1775 and through promotions reached the rank of Brigadier General of the Pennsylvania State Militia.  He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1776 and “was a firm advocate for independence.  Believing it was his duty to follow the wishes of his constituents, Wilson refused to vote until he had caucused his district.  Only after he received more feedback did he vote for independence.”  Beginning in June 1776, Wilson served on the Committee on Spies with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Rutledge, and Robert R. Livingston; this committee determined the definition of treason.

                The Fort Wilson Riot began on October 4, 1779, when a mob – drunken with liquor and enraged by the writings and speeches of Joseph Reed, President of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council – “marched on Congressman Wilson’s home.”  Why did they march against Wilson?  He had successfully represented twenty-three “people from property seizure and exile by the radical government of Pennsylvania.”  Wilson barricaded himself in his home – along with thirty-five of his colleagues; thus, his home was nicknamed “Fort Wilson.”  Six people lost their lives in the Fort Wilson Riot and at least seventeen people were wounded.  Eventually, Philadelphia’s soldiers rescued Wilson and his colleagues.  Joseph Reed pardoned and released the rioters.

                “Wilson closely identified with the aristocratic and conservative republican groups, multiplied his business interest, and accelerated his land speculation.  He also took a position as Advocate General for France in America (1779-83), dealing with commercial and maritime matters, and legally defended Loyalists and their sympathizers.  He held this post until 1798 (until his death).”

                As a very successful lawyer, Wilson was considered to be “the most learned of the Framers of the Constitution.  A fellow delegate in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia made the following assessment of James Wilson:  `Government seems to have been his peculiar study, all the political institutions of the world he knows in detail, and can trace the causes and effects of every revolution from the earliest stages of the Grecian commonwealth down to the present time.”

                Wilson was a member of the Committee of Detail, “which produced the first draft of the United States Constitution in 1787….  He wanted senators and the president to be popularly elected.  He also proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise at the convention, which made only three-fifths of the South’s slave population total to be counted for purposes of distributing taxes ad apportioning representation in the House and Electoral College.  Along with James Madison, he was perhaps the best versed of the framers in the study of political economy.  He understood clearly the central problem of dual sovereignty (nation and state) and held a vision of an almost limitless future for the United States.”  Addressing the Convention 168 times, Wilson’s mind was described by Dr. Benjamin Rush as being “one blaze of light.” 

                Because of the compromises necessary, Wilson did not totally agree with the full Constitution, but he worked diligently for it to be ratified by his state.  Following his lead at its convention, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the document.  “His October 6, 1787 speech in the State House courtyard has been seen as particularly important in setting the terms of the ratification debate, both locally and nationally.  In particular, it focused on the fact that there would be a popularly elected national government for the first time.  He distinguished `three simple species of government’ monarchy, aristocracy, and `a republic or democracy, where the people at large retain the supreme power, and act either collectively or by representation.’”  He was later a leader in the redrafting of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 “leading the group in favor of a new constitution, and entering into an agreement with William Findley (leader of the Constitutionalist Party) that limited the partisan feeling that had previously characterized Pennsylvanian politics.”

                President George Washington nominated Wilson to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court on September 24, 1789.  He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 26, 1789, and received his commission on September 29, 1789.  The Court heard only nine cases from the time of his appointment in 1789 until his death in 1798.  He was one of the six original Supreme Court justices appointed by George Washington.

                In 1790 Wilson became the first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia.  He “mostly ignored the practical matters of legal training.  Like many of his educated contemporaries, he viewed the academic study of law as a branch of a general cultured education, rather than solely as a prelude to a profession.

                Wilson had serious financial difficulties in his last years, mainly because he invested heavily “in land that became liabilities with the onset of the Panic of 1796-1797.  He spent some time in a Debtors’ Prison in Burlington, New Jersey, until his son paid the debt.  Wilson then went to North Carolina to avoid other creditors but was imprisoned briefly again. 

                James Wilson suffered a bout of malaria in 1798 and died of a stroke at age 55 while visiting a friend in Edenton, North Carolina.  His body was interred in the Johnston cemetery on the Hayes Plantation near Edenton but was moved in 1907 to the Christ Churchyard, Philadelphia.

Jared Ingersoll

                Jared Ingersoll was born on October 24, 1749, in New Haven, Connecticut.  He was the son of Jared Ingersoll (1722-1781) and Hannah Whiting.  His father was a prominent British official with strong Loyalist sentiments; his siding with the British led to his being tarred and feathered by radical Patriots.  When Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act on the American colonies in 1765, the elder Jared Ingersoll was appointed to be Stamp Master, Connecticut’s agent in London.  A few months later, he “became the most hated man in the Colony.”  The Sons of Liberty hung his effigy in New London, Connecticut, and in Norwich, Virginia.  He was the agent who enforced the Stamp Act in Connecticut.  Jared had one brother named James.

                Jared Ingersoll, the son, attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven and completed his studies there in 1762.  He “graduated from Yale College in 1766, studied law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1773.”  He drawn to the Patriot cause but tried to avoid it due to his “strong sense of personal loyalty to his distinguished father.”  He escaped the “growing political controversy” by taking his father’s advice to “continue his study of the law at the Middle Temple School (1773-76)” and to tour Europe.  During the eighteen months he spent in Paris, he became an acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin.

                Soon after the American colonies declaration of independence from Great Britain, Ingersoll declared his personal commitment to the Patriot cause.  By the time he arrived in Philadelphia in 1778, he was a confirmed Patriot.  Influential friends helped him to establish a law practice, and he became a delegate to the Continental Congress (1780-81).  On December 6, 1781, Ingersoll married Elizabeth Pettit, the daughter of Charles Pettit.  The couple was blessed with four sons,  three of whom survived to adulthood.  Charles Jared Ingersoll (October 3, 1782 – May 14, 1862) was a famous diplomat, author, and U.S. Congressman (1813-1815; 1841-1847).  Harry Ingersoll.  Joseph Reed Ingersoll (1786-1868) was named after his father’s mentor, became a prominent attorney, and served as U.S minister to England while Millard K. Fillmore was U.S. President.  Edward Ingersoll.

                Jared Ingersoll was a statesman and attorney in Philadelphia, and a supporter of the Patriots’ cause of liberty.  His training in the law led him to believe that the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation were to blame for the problems new nation.  “He became an early and ardent proponent of a simple revision of the Articles of Confederation.”  Several weeks of debate took place at the Constitutional Convention before Ingersoll was convinced that a new document was necessary.  He attended all the sessions; he seldom participated in the debates, but he signed the U.S. Constitution. 

Ingersoll greatest contribution to the constitutional form of government came after the Convention when he “helped define many of the principles enunciated at Philadelphia,” particularly through “several Supreme Court cases that defined various basic points in Constitutional law during the beginning of the new republic.”  Of particular note, he represented Georgia in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793).  He lost the case because the court ruled that a state could be sued by a citizen of another state.  This idea was reversed and state sovereignty replaced by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution.

Attorney Ingersoll represented Hylton in Hylton v. US (1796) and was “involved in the first legal challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress.  In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the government’s right to impose a tax on carriages.”  He also acted as counsel in “various cases that helped clarify constitutional issues concerning the jurisdiction of federal courts and U.S. relations with other sovereign nations, including defending Senator William Blount of Tennessee against impeachment.”

                Ingersoll returned to his law practice after the creation of the new national government.  He did however have a few political experiences.  He was a member of Philadelphia’s Common Council (1789) and opposed the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  He joined DeWitt Clinton on the Federalist Party ticket during the 1812 presidential election, but they were defeated by James Madison and Elbridge Gerry.  His other political offices were attorney general of Pennsylvania (1790-99 and 1811-17), Philadelphia’s city solicitor (1798-1801), U.S. district attorney for Pennsylvania (1800-1801), and presiding judge of the Philadelphia district court (1821-22).

                Jared Ingersoll died on October 31, 1822, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 73.  He was survived by three children.  He was buried in the Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Fourth and Pine Streets.  Madison, Wisconsin, named Ingersoll Street in his honor.

Thomas Fitzsimons

                Thomas Fitzsimons, an American merchant, statesman, and signer of the United States Constitution, may have been born in October 1741 in Ballikilty, North Co. Wexford, Leinster Province, Ireland, into a “collection of families” known as the “Fitzsymons.”  He immigrated to Philadelphia in the mid-1750s and was not there long before his father died.  Thomas had enough education to obtain employment as a clerk in a mercantile house. 

Thomas married Catherine Meade on November 23, 1761, and became business partners with her brother George.  They operated a successful business in the West Indies trade for more than 41 years.  Great Britain applied new revenue measures, including the Stamp Act of 1765, and these measures greatly affected Thomas’s firm.  Thomas was concerned about the tax problems and became an active member in the Irish merchant community in Philadelphia.  He was elected as the head of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1771; in 1774 he was part of a committee organized to protest the taxes.

Thomas Fitzsimons quickly became involved when Pennsylvania formed a militia to fight the British.  He helped to raise a company of home guards and served as a captain in the company under the command of Colonel John Caldwalader.  His company defended the New Jersey coast against British military actions and was later part of the reserve at the Battle of Trenton in 1776.  At the request of the government of Pennsylvania, Thomas oversaw the newly formed Pennsylvania Navy and helped to organize the strategic resources of Pennsylvania.  In this role, he later provided ships, supplies, and money to support Pennsylvanian and French forces.

Fitzsimons became active in politics when he was chosen to be a delegate to the Continental Congress (1782, 1783).  His political career continued when he was elected as a member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives in 1786 and 1787.  Also in 1787, he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He was not a “leading member” of the group, but he “supported a strong national government, the end of slavery, the United States Congress’s powers to impose a tariff on imports and exports, the granting the house of representatives, and the equal power in making treaties to the United States Senate….  He was one of only two Catholic signers of the United States Constitution, the other being Daniel Carroll of Maryland.”

Under the new Constitution, Thomas served in the first three sessions of the House of Representatives.  After losing the next election, he withdrew from politics but remained active in civic and business affairs.  “He served as president of Philadelphia’s Chamber of Commerce, as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Delaware Insurance Company, and a director of the Bank of North America from 1781-1803.  He was a founder of the bank, and supported efforts to found the College of Georgetown.”

Thomas Fitzsimons died on August 26, 1811, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Catholic Church (now part of Independence National Historical Park).

George Clymer

                George Clymer, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, was born on March 16, 1739, in Maine or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was orphaned when only one year old.  He was apprenticed to his maternal aunt and uncle, Hannah and William Coleman, in order to prepare to become a merchant.

                Clymer was one of the last of the Patriots to advocate for complete independence from Britain.  He was a leader in the demonstrations in Philadelphia caused by the Tea Act and the Stamp Act.  He was a member of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety in 1773 and was elected to the Continental Congress (1776-1780) where he shared the responsibility of being the treasurer with Michael Hillegas, the first Treasurer of the United States.

                During his first congressional term, Clymer served on several committees.  He was among those who were sent to inspect the northern army on behalf of Congress in the fall of 1776.  When Sir Henry Clinton and his army threatened to occupy Philadelphia, Congress left town, but Clymer, George Walton, and Robert Morris stayed behind. He resigned from Congress in 1777.

Clymer’s business ventures during the war and afterwards increased his wealth.  In 1779 and 1780, he and his son Meredith had a lucrative trade with St. Eustatius.  In 1780 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature.  In 1782 he had the responsibility of touring the southern states in an attempt to get the various legislatures to pay their debts to the central government.  He was re-elected to the Pennsylvania legislature in 1784 and also represented Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.  He was elected to the first U.S. Congress in 1789.

Being involved in other areas, Clymer was the first president of the Philadelphia Bank and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as well as vice-president of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society.  In 1791 when Congress passed a bill imposing a duty on spirits distilled in the United States, Clymer became the head of the Pennsylvania excise department.  He was among the commissioners who negotiated a treaty with the Creek Indian confederacy at Colerain, Georgia, on June 29, 1796.  He donated the property for a county seat in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and is considered a benefactor of said borough.

George Clymer married Elizabeth Meredith on March 22, 1765, and the couple became parents of nine children.  Four of their children died in infancy.  His oldest surviving son, Henry (born 1767) married Mary Willing Clymer, the Philadelphia socialite, in 1794.  Other children who survived to adulthood include John Meredith, Margaret, George, and Ann.  John Meredith was killed at 18 years of age in the Whiskey Rebellion in 1787.  Their home – Summerseat – still stands in Morrisville, Pennsylvania.  David Clymer, the famous rock bassist and trumpet player, is among his descendants. 

Clymer died on January 24, 1813, in Morrisville, Pennsylvania and was buried at the Friends Ground in Trenton, New Jersey. 

 He has the distinction of having the following towns and schools named after him:  Clymer, Indiana County, Pennsylvania; Clymer, Chautauqua County, New York; and George Clymer Elementary School in the School District of Philadelphia.  The majority of students at this school were children of color – following Clymer’s legacy of rights for all people.  

Robert Morris

                Robert Morris, a signer of three important American documents (the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States), was born on January 20, 1734, in Liverpool, England.  His parents were Robert Morris, Sr. and Elizabeth Murphet.  Robert, the son, immigrated to Oxford, Maryland, at 13 years of age in order to live with his father who was a tobacco factor.  His father provided a tutor for him, but Robert quickly learned everything his teacher could teach him.  His father then sent him to Philadelphia to study.

                Robert lived with a family friend, Charles Greenway, who arranged for him to become an apprentice at the shipping and banking firm of the Philadelphia merchant (and then mayor) Charles Willing.  Robert’s father died a year later after being hit by the wadding of a ship’s gun that was fired in his honor.  Charles Willing died in 1754, and his son Thomas Willing made Robert his partner at the age of 24 years.  They established the prominent shipping-banking firm of Willing, Morris & Co. on May 1, 1757.  The partnership lasted until about 1779.

                On March 2, 1769, Robert married Mary White; Robert was 35, and Mary was 20.  They became the parents of five sons and two daughters.  Mary came from a prominent Maryland family; her brother was the well-known Anglican Bishop William White.  Bishop White ran two churches in Philadelphia – St. Peter’s Church on Pine Street and Christ Church on Second Street, and Robert worshipped at both of them.  Robert was an active member and supporter of this Anglican Church for his entire life.  Robert and Bishop White are both buried at Christ Church, Philadelphia in the churchyard located at Second and Market.  These churches had good reputations and locations and drew a number of notable members of the Continental Congress, including George Washington.

                Morris became active in politics when he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly.  He later became the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety.  He was selected to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress where he served as chairman of the “Secret Committee of Trade” and as a member of the Committee of Correspondence.  He served from 1781 to 1784 as the powerful Superintendent of Finance, managing the economy of the fledgling United States.  He was the central civilian in the government and stood next to George Washington as “the most powerful man in America.”  He was so successful in administering the funds that he became known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”  As the Agent of Marine, he controlled the Continental Navy but received no pay from the position.

                Robert Morris was a wealthy man and used much of his own money to fund the war.  He was one of Pennsylvania’s original pair of U.S. Senators and served from 1789 to 1795.  Unwise land speculation right before the Panic of 1796-1797 caused his bankruptcy in 1798, and he sat in debtors’ prison for several years.  Part of the reason that the U.S. Congress passed its first bankruptcy legislation, the temporary Bankruptcy Act of 1800, was to get Morris out of prison.  After his release from prison and suffering from bad health, he retired to a quiet and private life in a modest Philadelphia home where he passed away on either May 8 or May 9, 1806.  He was survived by his wife who supported him throughout his misfortune.  He is buried in the family vault of Bishop William White, his brother-in-law, at Christ Church.  A plaque installed later reads:  “ROBERT MORRIS signer of the Constitution of the United States of America.  Deputy from Pennsylvania to Federal Constitutional Convention May 25, 1787 – September 17, 1787.  Erected by the Pennsylvania Constitution Commemorative Committee.”

                Morris left a great legacy.  His work, “On Public Credit” submitted during the Revolution, to the Continental Congress in 1781, supplied the basis for Hamilton’s economic plan submitted in 1790 under the title First Report on the Public Credit.  Morris laid out a national funding plan but its reliance on direct taxation, including a head tax on slaves, prevented his gaining support for it.  Hamilton added to the plan as Secretary of Treasury.  Along with Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, Morris is considered one of the key founders of the financial system in the United States.

                The portrait of Morris appeared on US $1000 notes from 1862 to 1863 and on the $10 Silver Certificates from 1878 to 1880.  Morris and Roger Sherman were the only two people to sign all three significant founding documents of the United States – the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.    Morris is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, or the Articles of Confederation (and he signed all three) whose house is the site of a national memorial in a National Park, but whose life and work are not interpreted.

                The dollar sign (“$”) was in common use among private merchants during the middle of the 18^th century.  It referred to the two columns draped with scrolls on the Spanish milled dollar, which predated the US dollar.  Morris was the first to use that symbol in official documents and in official communications with Oliver Pollock.  The US dollar was based on the Spanish milled dollar when, in the Coinage Act of 1792, the first Mint Act, its value was “fixed” (per the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 where power is given to the United States Congress “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”) as being “of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver.”

                The following institutions were named in honor of Robert Morris:  Robert Morris University, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris University (Illinois); Robert Morris Elementary School, Batavia, New York; Robert Morris Elementary School #27, Scranton, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris Elementary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris School, South Bound Brook, New Jersey.  Mount Morris, New York, location of a large flood control dam on the Genesee River, was named in his honor.  A number of ships in the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard have been named USS Morris or USRC Morris in his honor.  A small town, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor and has a statue of him in the town square.

Thomas Mifflin

                Thomas Mifflin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mifflin signer of the Constitution of the United States, was born on January 10, 1744, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He was the son of John Mifflin and Elizabeth Bagnall.  He attended and graduated from the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1760 and then joined William Biddle’s mercantile business.  He traveled to Europe, returning in 1765.  After his return he and his brother, George Mifflin, established a commercial business partnership.  Thomas married Sarah Morris, his cousin, on March 4, 1765.

                Thomas was serving in the Continental Congress when he left to serve in the Continental Army early in the Revolutionary War.  He was expelled from the Religious Society of Friends even though his family had been Quakers for four generations.  He was expelled by the Quakers because his military service contradicted the pacifistic nature of his faith.  He later joined the Lutheran religion.

                After being commissioned as a major, Thomas became General George Washington’s aide-de-camp.  Then on August 14, 1775, Washington appointed Thomas to be the army’s first Quartermaster General under orders from Congress.  He preferred to serve on the front lines of battle, but he performed well in this appointment.  Because of his ability to lead others in battle, He was promoted to colonel and then brigadier general.  Even though he requested to be relieved of the job of Quartermaster General, he was persuaded to resume those duties for the simple reason that Congress could not find a replacement for him.

                Congress debated whether a national army or individual state armies was more efficient.  The debate resulted in the creation of the Congressional Board of War.  Thomas Mifflin served on this board from 1777 to 1778 and then rejoined the army.  Due to criticism of his service as Quartermaster General, he did not take an active role in the military.  He was accused of embezzlement, for which he welcomed an inquiry.  He resigned his commission as Major General even though no inquiry was held.  Congress continued to ask for his service even after accepting his resignation.

                Thomas was a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly (1772-1776), and he served two terms in the Continental Congress (1774-1775 and 1782-1784).  He served as the presiding officer of the Congress for seven months (November 1783 to June 1784).  His most important duty while serving as president was to accept on behalf of Congress the commission of General George Washington, who resigned as Commander of the army in December 1783.  Congress had so little importance remaining after the war that Thomas had a difficult time convincing states to send delegates to Congress to ratify the Treaty of Paris.  The Treaty finally took place on January 14, 1784, and officially brought an end to the Revolutionary War.

                Thomas represented Pennsylvania as a delegate at the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787 and signed the finished Constitution.  He served in the house of Pennsylvania General Assembly (1785-1788).  He served as a member of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; he was elected President of the Council on November 5, 1788, replacing Benjamin Franklin.  He was unanimously re-elected to the Presidency the following year on November 11, 1789.  He presided over the committee that wrote the 1790 Pennsylvania State Constitution, and the new document put an end to the Executive Council and replaced it with a single Governor.  Thomas became the last President of Pennsylvania as well as the first Governor of the Commonwealth on December 21, 1790.  He held the office of Governor until Thomas McKean succeeded him on December 17, 1799.  Thomas Mifflin then returned to the state legislature and served in that body until his death about a month later.  “Mifflin decreed that no less than six towns in Pennsylvania bear his name.”

                Thomas Mifflin died on January 20 or January 23 in 1800 and was buried in front of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  A Commonwealth of Pennsylvania historical marker at the church commemorates both Thomas Wharton and Thomas Mifflin, the first and last Presidents of Pennsylvania under the 1776 State Constitution.  The marker was dedicated in 1975 and is located on Duke Street in Lancaster.  It reads:  “Holy Trinity Founded in 1730.  A session for an Indian treaty was held in the original church building in 1762.  The present edifice was dedicated in 1766.  Here are interred the remains of Thomas Wharton (1778) and Gov. Thomas Mifflin (1800).”

                Mifflin was an American merchant and politician as well as a major general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.  He was also a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania, President of the Continental Congress, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  He served as Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, President of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, and the first Governor of Pennsylvania.  He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society.

                Thomas Mifflin has the distinction of having the following entities named in his honor:  Mifflin County, Pennsylvania; Governor Mifflin School District; Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania; Mifflintown, Pennsylvania; Mifflinville, Pennsylvania; Mifflin Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania; Upper Mifflin Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania; Fort Mifflin, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania; several townships in Ohio; West Mifflin, Pennsylvania; Mifflin Hall (the main building at the US Army Quartermaster Center and School at Fort Lee, Virginia, decommissioned July 30, 2010; Mifflin Hall (the U.S. Army Sustainment Center of Excellence Headquarters at Fort Lee, Virginia; Mifflin Hall (dormitory) at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus; Thomas Mifflin School, School District of Philadelphia; Mifflin Avenue in Scranton, Pennsylvania; Mifflin Street in Madison, Wisconsin; Mifflin Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Thomas Mifflin English Muffins in Azusa, California.  Dunder Mifflin, the fictional paper distribution company, is a parody of the large number of entities.

Benjamin Franklin

                Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous of our Founding Fathers and a signer of the United States Constitution, was born January 17, 1706, on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Benjamin’s father, Josiah Franklin, was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on December 23, 1657, the son of Jane White and Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer.  Benjamin’s mother, Abiah Folger, was born on August 15, 1667, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the daughter of Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife Mary Morrill, a former indentured servant.

Josiah Franklin had a large family of seventeen children.  He married Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and immigrated with her to Boston in 1683 with their three children; they had four children after arriving in America.  After Anne’s death, Josiah married Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689, in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard.  Benjamin was the eighth child of Abiah and Josiah; however, he was Josiah’s fifteenth child and tenth and last son.

Abiah Folger Franklin was born into one of the Puritan families that fled from England when King Charles I began persecuting Puritans.  They immigrated to Massachusetts in 1635 in order to establish a purified Congregationalist Christianity there.  Abiah’s father was “the sort of rebel destined to transform colonial America.” He was clerk of the court when he was jailed for defending middle-class shopkeepers and artisans who were in conflict with wealthy landowners and disobeying the local magistrate in doing so.  Benjamin Franklin followed in his grandfather’s footsteps while battling the wealthy Penn family that owned the Pennsylvania Colony. 

Benjamin was never ashamed of his roots in the working class and became famous due to his willingness to work and try new things.  He became a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman and diplomat.  Franklin was a “major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity.  He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass `armonica’.  He facilitated many civic organizations, including a fire department and a university.”

Benjamin Franklin is known as “The First American” for his early and tireless campaign for colonial unity and as an author and spokesman for several colonies while in London.  While serving as the “first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation.  Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment.  In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, `In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat.”  To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin, `the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become.’”

As the British postmaster in the colonies for many years, Franklin set up the first national communications network.  He was also active in affairs and politics on the community, colonial, state, national, and international levels.  He served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1785 to 1788.  He became “one of the most prominent abolitionists” when he freed his slaves toward the end of his life.

Franklin is “one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers” because of his colorful life as well as his legacy of scientific and political achievement.  He is honored on coinage, money, warships, names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and companies.  Even two centuries after his death, he is honored in countless cultural references.

               Benjamin Franklin married Deborah Read, and the couple was blessed with three children (William Franklin, Francis Folger Franklin, and Sarah Franklin Bache.

Jonathan Dayton

                Jonathan Dayton, future signer of the United States Constitution, was born on October 16, 1760, in Elizabethtown (now known as Elizabeth), New Jersey.  His father, Elias Dayton, was a merchant; he had been a militia officer in the French and Indian War and became prominent in local politics. 

                Jonathan attended and graduated from a local academy and was classmates with Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.  He attended the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University) but left in 1775 to fight in the revolution; he received an honorary degree in 1776.

                While only 15 years old when the Revolutionary War begin in 1775, he served as an ensign under his father (Elias) in the Third New Jersey Regiment.  He was commissioned a lieutenant on January 1, 1777, and served as paymaster.  He saw action under General George Washington and fought in the battles of Brandywine Creek and Germantown.  He was with Washington at Valley Forge and assisted in pushing the British Army from New Jersey to New York City.  He and his uncle were captured in October 1780 by a loyalist and kept captive throughout the winter.  After their release, they again served under Elias in the New Jersey Brigade. 

                Jonathan was 19 years old on March 30, 1780, when he was promoted to the rank of captain.  He transferred to the Second New Jersey and took part in Battle of Yorktown.  According to the Revolutionary War Pension files, he served as Aid-de-Camp to General Sullivan while fighting the Indians from May 1 to November 30, 1779.

                After the War for Independence ended, Jonathan studied law and established a law practice; he then divided his time between land speculation, law, and politics.  At age 26 he was the youngest member of the New Jersey delegation to the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention.  He was also the youngest person to sign the United States Constitution.  He became a prominent Federalist legislator, a member of the New Jersey General Assembly (1786-1787, 1790) and served in the New Jersey Legislative Council (now the New Jersey Senate) in 1789.

                Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1789, Jonathan did not take his seat there until he was elected a second time in 1791.  He served as Speaker for the Fourth and Fifth Congress and supported the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton.  He assisted in organizing the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, supported the Louisiana Purchase, and opposed the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801.  He later served in the U.S. Senate.

                Investing heavily in Ohio, Jonathan became wealthy.  He loaned money to Aaron Burr and thus became “involved by association” in Burr’s “conspiracy”.  Burr was accused but never convicted of the intent to conquer parts of what is now the western United States.  Jonathan was arrested in 1807 for treason in connection with Burr’s “conspiracy,” but he was never actually tried.  Jonathan was exonerated, but his political career came to an end because of the “conspiracy   

         

                Jonathan married Susan Williamson, and the couple became the parents of two daughters.  According to Susan’s Revolutionary War Pension Application W.6994, the marriage occurred on March 28, 1779.  A supporting letter was written by Aaron Ogden, a Captain in the New Jersey Brigade, stating that he “was present at the marriage of the said Jonathan Dayton and Susan his wife; which marriage ceremony was performed by the Reverent Mr. Hoyt, a Presbyterian Clergyman… in the fore part of spring of the year seventeen hundred and seventy nine (1779) while the New Jersey Brigade lay at Elizabethtown in the Borough of Elizabeth & state of new Jersey.”

                Jonathan died on October 9, 1824, in his hometown and was interred in an unmarked grave.  His grave is currently under St. John’s Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, which replaced the original church in 1860.  According to an obituary, Jonathan was visited shortly before his death by Lafayette:  “In New Jersey, Hon. JONATHAN DAYTON, formerly Speaker of the House of Representatives of Congress, and a Hero of the Revolution.  When the Nation’s Guest lately passed New Jersey, he passed the night with General Dayton, and such were the exertions of this aged and distinguished federalist, to honor the Guest, and gratify the wishes of his fellow citizens to see, that he sunk under them; and expired, without regret, a few days after (Columbian Centinel (Boston, MA), Oct 20, 1824, p. 2).”

                Jonathan’s legacy includes having Dayton, Ohio, named after him although he “never set foot in the area.” When the city was established in 1796, he was in a partnership that owned 250,000 acres in the Great Miami River Basin.  His legacy also includes the Jonathan Dayton High School in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey; the Dayton neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey; and Dayton Street in Madison, Wisconsin.