USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of Independence Hall : from the earliest period to the present time : embracing biographies of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence, with historical sketches of the sacred relics preserved in that sanctuary of American freedom > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
1
273
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
tention in the matter of education of mind and heart. On the death of his father, Mr. Rodney, as the eldest male heir, inherited the paternal cstate, and with it the distinguished consideration with which the family had ever been regarded. When the Stamp Act ex- cited the jealousy and alarm of the Colonies, Mr. Rod- ney boldly proclaimed his sentiments in opposition to it and several antecedent acts of injustice which the British Government had inflicted upon her Colonies in America. He acted as well as thought and spoke, and when the "Stamp Act Congress" met in New York, in 1765, Mr. Rodney, together with Mr. M'Kean and Mr. Rollock, was chosen delegate thereto by a unanimous vote. Mr. Rodney was a member of the Provincial Assembly in 1769, and was chosen its Speaker. IIe continued a member, and the Speaker of that body until 1774; and, as chairman of the cor- responding committee, he was arduous in plying his pen in the interchange of political sentiments with his compatriots in other Colonies. He was elected a dele- gate to the General Congress by a convention of the people of the three counties of Delaware in August, 1774, and took his seat at the opening of Congress on the fifth of September following. His colleagues were Thomas M'Kean and George Read, and three more devoted and active men than these could hardly be found. He was one of a committee who drew up a Declaration of Rights, and set forth, in an address, the causes for complaint under which the colonists groaned. Mr. Rodney was elected a delegate for 1775, and while attending to his duties in Congress he was appointed Brigadier-General of his Province. He was in Con- gress during the closing debates upon the proposition
274
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
for a Declaration of Independence in 1776, but was sent for by his colleague, Mr. M'Kean, so as to secure the vote of Delaware for that important measure. He arrived in time to give his voice for independence, and enjoyed the high privilege of signing the revered parchment. On his return to his constituents they approved, by acclamation, of his acts in the national council. After the battle of Princeton, at the begin- ning of 1777, in which Colonel Haslet, who belonged to General Rodney's brigade, was killed, the latter immediately started for the army, and meeting Lord Stirling at Philadelphia, received orders to remain at Princeton, and make it a sort of recruiting station. General Rodney remained there for about two months, when his services became no longer necessary, and he returned to his family. Soon after his return home, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. He, however, declined the honor, preferring the more active life of his military station. He was soon after- ward called to marshal his brigade to a scene of in- surrectionary disorder in Delaware, which he speedily quelled ; and he also joined the main army of Wash- ington when the British under Lord Howe landed at the mouth of the Elk River, and directed their march toward Philadelphia. While thus laboring for his country's good, Mr. Rodney suffered greatly from the effects of a disease (cancer in the cheek) that had been upon him from his youth, and it made dreadful in- roads upon his health. Feeling conscious that he was wasting away, he retired from public life, and calmly awaited the summons for departure to the spirit-land. He died early in the year 1783, when in the fifty- third year of his age.
275
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
GEORGE READ was born in Cecil County, in the Province of Maryland, in the year 1734, and was the eldest of six brothers. He was of Irish descent. His father emigrated to America from Ireland, about 1726. George was placed in a school of considerable repute at Chester, in Pennsylvania, where he made much progress in Latin and Greek, his father having previously in- structed him in all the common branches of a good En- glish education. He was afterward placed under the care of the Rev. Dr. Allison, who at various times had charge of several pupils, who were afterward mem- bers of the Continental Congress, or held other high official stations. At the age of seventeen years young Read commenced the study of law in the office of John Morland, a distinguished barrister of Philadelphia. He was admitted to the bar in 1753, at the early age of nineteen years, and then commenced a career of honor and usefulness to himself and others. In 1754, he set- tled in the county of Newcastle, Delaware, and com- menced the practice of his profession. Although com- petitors of eminence were all around him, Mr. Read soon rose to their level, and at the age of twenty-nine, he succeeded John Ross," as Attorney-General for the "lower counties on the Delaware," of Kent, Sussex and Newcastle. This office he held until elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, in 1774. In 1775, Mr. Read was elected a member of the General Assembly of Delaware, and was re-elected to the office eleven consecutive years. He was one of a committee of that body, who, in view of the odious features of
* He was married in 1763 to the accomplished and pious daughter of the Rev. George Ross, the pastor of a church in New- castle, and a relative of the Attorney-General.
---------
276
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
the Stamp Act, proposed an address to the King in behalf of the people of the Province. 1
When the sufferings of the people of Boston from the effects of the Act of Parliament known as the " Bos- ton Port Bill," excited the warmest sympathy through- out the Colonies, and subscriptions for their relief were everywhere made-Mr. Reed, with Nicholas Van Dyke, was made the channel of transmission of the donations of the people of Delaware, and he was exceedingly ac- tive himself in procuring pecuniary and other aid. In 1774, Mr. Read, with Cæsar Rodney and Thomas M'Kean for colleagues, was appointed by the Assembly of Delaware, a delegate to the General Congress that met in September of that year, at Philadelphia. He was a delegate also in 1775 and 1776, and during the early part of the latter year, his labors were divided between his duties in Congress and the affairs of his own State. He was an earnest advocate of the Decla- ration of Independence, and considered it a high privi- lege when he placed his name upon the parchment. After the declaration, the people of Delaware formed a State Constitution, and Mr. Read was President of the Convention that framed the instrument. His arduous duties at length affected his health ; and in 1798, death by sudden illness closed his useful life, in the sixty- fourth year of his age.
THOMAS M'KEAN was born in New London, Ches- ter County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1734. Ilis father was a native of Ireland, and Thomas was the second child of his parents. After receiving the usual elementary instruction, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Dr. Allison, and was a pupil under him with George Read. At the conclusion of his studies
277
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
he entered the office of David Finney of Newcastle, as a law student : and so soon did his talents become manifest, that in the course of a few months after eu- tering upon the study of the law, he was employed as an assistant clerk of the Court of Common Pleas. In fact he performed all the duties of the principal. He was admitted to the bar before he was twenty-one years of age, and permitted to practice in the three counties of Delaware. Mr. M'Kean soon rose to emi- nence in his profession, and attracted the attention of most of the leading men of the day. Without any solicitation or premonition, he was appointed, in 1756, by the Attorney-General of the Province, his deputy to prosecute all claims for the Crown in the County of Sussex. He was then only twenty-two years old. The next year (1757) he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and about the same time the House of Assembly of Delaware elected him their clerk. He declined a second election in 1758.
Mr. M'Kean was a delegate to the "Stamp Act Con- gress," in 1765, and was the associate upon a commit- tee with James Otis and Thomas Lynch, in preparing an address to the British House of Commons. For their services in that Congress, he and his colleague, Mr. Rodney, received the unanimous thanks of the Assembly of Delaware. Mr. M'Kean zealously op- posed the encroachments of British power upon Amer. ican rights, and he heartily concurred in the sentiments of the Massachusetts Circular, recommending a Gen- eral Congress. He was elected a delegate thereto, was present at the opening on the fifth of September, 1774, and soon became distinguished as one of the most ac- tive men in that august body. He continued a mem-
24
·
278
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
ber of the Continental Congress from that time, until the ratification of the treaty of peace in 1783. Im- pressed with the conviction that reconciliation with Great Britain was out of the question, he zealously supported the measure which led to a final Declara- tion of Independence; and when that Declaration was submitted to Congress for action, he voted for and signed it. From the period of the conclusion of the war, Judge M'Kean was actively engaged in Pennsyl- vania and Delaware, in various services which the ar- rangement of discordant political elements into a sym- metrical form of government required; and his labors in aid of the formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution were various and arduous. He continued in the chair of Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, until 1799, (a period of twenty years,) when he was elected Governor of that State. To this office he was elected three successive terms, and held it nine years. At the session of 1807-8, of the Pennsylvania Legislature, his opponents presented articles of impeachment for mal- administration, which closed with a resolution that " Thomas M'Kean, the Governor of the Commonwealth. be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors." The charges were brought fully before the House, but by the summary measure of indefinitely postponing their consideration, they were never acted upon. The last public act of Governor M'Kean, was to preside over the deliberations of the people of Philadelphia, when, during the war with Great Britain in 1812, that city was threatened with an attack from the enemy. He then withdrew into private life, where he remained until his death, which occurred on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1817, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.
279
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
SAMUEL CHASE was born on the seventeenth day of April, 1741, in Somerset County, Maryland. Ilis father was a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal church, and possessing an excellent education him- self, he imparted such instruction to his son in the study of the classics, and in the common branches of an English education, as well fitted him for entering upon professional life. He commenced the study of law at the age of eighteen years, under Messrs. Ham- mond and Hall of Annapolis, who stood at the head of their profession in that section of the province. At the age of twenty he was admitted to practice before the mayor's court; and at twenty-two he became a member of the bar, and was allowed to practice in the chancery and other colonial courts. He located at Annapolis, where he soon became distinguished as an advocate, and one of the most successful lawyers in the province. At the early age of twenty years, Mr. Chase was chosen a member of the Provincial As- sembly, and there his independence of feeling and action in matters of principle greatly offended those time-serving legislators who fawned at the feet of the royal governor. There he first gave evidence of that stamina of character which he afterward so strongly manifested when called upon to act amid the momen tous scenes of the Revolution. The Stamp Act aroused the energies of his soul to do battle for his country's rights, and he was among the first in Mary- land who lifted up voice and hand against the op- pressor. He became obnoxious to the authorities of Annapolis, and they attempted, by degrading epithets, to crush his cagle spirit while yet a fledgling. But their persecution extended his notoriety, and he soon
---------
-
280
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
became popular with the great mass of the people. Mr. Chase was one of the five delegates to the first Continental Congress, in 1774, appointed by a con- vention of the people of Maryland. He was also ap- pointed by the same meeting, one of the "Committee of Correspondence" for that Colony. These appoint- ments made him obnoxious to the adherents to royalty, yet their good opinion was the least thing he coveted. In the General Congress he was bold and energetic, and even at that early day, he expressed his senti- ments freely in favor of absolute independence. This feeling, however, was not general in the Colonies, and the people were desirous of reconciliation by righteous means, rather than independence. Early in the spring of 1776, he was appointed one of a committee with Dr. Franklin and Charles Carroll, to go on a mission to Canada, the chief object of which was to effect a concurrence, in that Province, with the movements in the other English Colonies. Mr. Chase gave his vote for the Declaration of Independence, and signed the instrument with a willing hand. He continued a member of Congress until 1778, and was almost constantly employed in the duties of most important committees. Some of these were of a delicate and trying nature, yet he never allowed his sensibility to control his judgment, or shake his firmness of pur- pose. In 1796, President Washington nominated him a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, which nomination was confirmed by the Senate. He held the office about fifteen years, and no man ever stood higher for honesty of purpose and integrity of motives, than Judge Chase. Notwithstanding the rancor of such party feeling as dared to charge Presi-
.
C
281
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
dent Washington with appropriating the public moncy to his own private use, did all in its power to pluck the ermine from his shoulders," yet his purity beamed the brighter as the clouds grew darker, and he lived to hear the last whisper of calumny flit by like a bat in the morning twilight. IIis useful life terminated on the nineteenth day of June, 1811, when he was in the seventieth year of his age. Judge Chase was a man of great benevolence of feeling,t and in all his walks he exemplified the beauties of Christianity, of which he was a sincere professor. At the time of his death he was a communicant in St. Paul's church in Baltimore, of the parish of which, when he was a child, his father had pastoral charge.
THOMAS STONE .- Many of those bold patriots who pledged life, fortune and honor, in support of the Inde- pendence of the United States of America, left behind but few written memorials of the scenes in which they
* His political and personal opponents procured his impeach- ment in 1804, for malconduct on the bench. He was tried and honorably acquitted, to the shame and confusion of his enemies.
t We cannot forbear relating an incident in which this cha- racteristic was displayed. Being on a visit to Baltimore, about the close of the Revolution, curiosity led him to a debating so- ciety, where he was struck by the eloquence of a young man, a druggist's clerk. He ascertained his name, sought an inter- view, and advised him to study law. The youth stated frankly that his poverty was an insuperable impediment in the way. Mr. Chase at once offered him a seat at his table and free access to his extensive library. The young man gratefully accepted the kind offer, went through a course of legal studies, and was admitted to the bar, after passing an examination with distin- guished ability. That young man was William Pinkney, after- ward Attorney-General of the United States, and minister for the same at the Court of Great Britain.
24*
282
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
took a conspicuous part, and hence the biographers who engaged in the task of delineating the characters and acts of those men, were obliged to find their materials in scattered fragments among public records, or from the lips of surviving relations or compatriots. Such was the case of Thomas Stone, the subject of this brief sketch, whose unassuming manners and attachment to domestic life kept him in apparent obscurity except when called forth by the commands of duty. Thomas Stone was born at the Pointoin Manor, in the Province of Maryland, in the year 1743. After receiving a good English education, and some knowledge of the classics, he entered upon the study of the law, and at the age of twenty-one years he commenced its practice. Where he began business in his profession is not certainly known, but it is supposed to have been in Annapolis. Although quite unambitious of personal fame, he nev- ertheless, from the impulses of a patriotic heart, es- poused the cause of the patriots and took an active part in the movements preliminary to the calling of the first General Congress in 1774. He was elected one of the first five delegates thereto from that State, and after actively performing his duties throughout that first short session, he again retired to private life. But his talents and patriotism had become too conspic- uous for his fellow-citizens to allow him to remain in- active, and toward the latter part of 1775, he was again elected to the General Congress.
Mr. Stone, like Paca and others, voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence. IIe was one of the committee who framed the Articles of Confederation, which were finally adopted in November, 1777. He was again elected to Congress that year, and finally
283
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
retired from it early in 1778, and entered the Legisla- ture of his own state, where he earnestly advocated the adoption, by that body, of the Articles of Confede- ration. The Maryland Legislature was too strongly imbued with the ultra principles of State rights and absolute independence of action to receive with favor the proposition for a general political union, with Con- gress for a Federal head, and it was not until 1781 that that State agreed to the confederation. Mr. Stone was again elected to Congress in 1783, and was pres- ent when General Washington resigned his military commission into the hands of that body. In 1784, he was appointed President of Congress, pro tempore; and had not his native modesty supervened, he would doubt- less have been regularly elected to that important sta- tion, then the highest office in the gift of the people. On the adjournment of Congress, he returned to his constituents and resumed the duties of his profession at Port Tobacco, the place of his residence, where he died, on the fifth of October, 1787, in the forty-fifth year of his age.
WILLIAM PACA was the descendant of a wealthy planter on the east shore of Maryland. He was born at Wye Hall, his paternal residence, in the year 1740. His early moral and intellectual training was carefully attended to, and at a proper age he was placed in the Philadelphia College, whence he graduated, after a course of arduous and profitable study, with great credit to himself. He then commenced the study of law with Mr. Hammond and Mr. Hall, of Annapolis, and Samuel Chase, his subsequent Congressional col- league, was a fellow student. Mr. Paca was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty, and the next year
284
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
(1761), he was chosen a member of the Provincial As- sembly. When the Stamp Act, in 1765, aroused the people of the Colonies to their common danger, Mr. Paca, with Mr. Chase and Mr. Carrol, warmly opposed its operation. And every succeeding measure of the British government, asserting its right to tax the Americans without their consent, was fearlessly con- demned by him, and thus he soon obtained the disappro- bation of the royal governor of the Province, and of those who adhered to the king and parliament. Like Mr. Chase he became very popular with the people by his patriotic conduct. He approved of the proposition for a General Congress in 1774, and he zealously promoted the meeting of people in country conventions to ex- press their sentiments upon this point. He was ap- pointed by a State Convention of Maryland, one of its five representatives to the Continental Congress, who were instructed to " agree to all measures which might be deemed necessary to obtain a redress of American grievances." Mr. Paca was re-elected in 1775, and continued a member of Congress until 1778, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of his State. Like Mr. Chase, Mr. Paca was much em- barrassed in Congress by the opposition of his con- stituents to independence, and their loyal adherence to the British Crown, as manifested in their instructions, frequently repeated in the early part of 1776. Even as late as the middle of May, they passed a resolution prohibiting their delegates from voting for indepen- dence; but on the twenty-eighth of the same month a remarkable change in their opinions took place, and they ceased praying for the king and royal family ! This was a sort of half wheel, and toward the latter part of
285
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
June the convention finished its evolutions by a "right about face," and withdrew their restrictions upon the votes of their delegates. Thus relieved, Mr. Paca and his associates continued their efforts to effect a declara- tion of independence with more zeal than ever, and re- corded their votes for the severance of the political bond of union with Great Britain, on the fourth of July following. On the second of August, they fearlessly af- fixed their signatures to the parchment. About the beginning of 1778, Mr. Paca was appointed Chief Jus- tice of the State of Maryland. He performed the du- ties with great ability and fidelity until 1782, when he was elected President or Governor of that State, under the old Articles of Confederation. He held the execu- tive office one year, and then retired to private life. He was a pure and active patriot, a consistent Christian, and a valuable citizen, in every sense of the word. His death was mourned as a public calamity ; and his life, pure and spotless, active and useful, exhibited a bright exemplar for the imitation of the young men of America. He died in 1799, in the sixtieth year of his age.
286
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WILLIAM FLOYD-LEWIS MORRIS-WILLIAM WIL- LIAMS-MATTHEW THORNTON-STEPHEN HOPKINS -WILLIAM ELLERY-ROGER SHERMAN.
A stern array of noble men, Whose actions cannot die.
WILLIAM FLOYD .- Wales, in Great Britain, was the fatherland of William Floyd. His grandfather came hither from that country in the year 1680, and settled at Setauket, on Long Island. He was distin- guished for his wealth, and possessed great influence among his brother agriculturists. The subject of this memoir was born on the seventeenth day of December, 1734. His wealthy father gave him every opportu- nity for acquiring useful knowledge. He had scarcely closed his studies, before the death of his father called him to the supervision of the estate, and he performed his duties with admirable skill and fidelity. His various excellencies of character, united with a pleas- ing address, made him very popular; and having espoused the republican cause in opposition to the op- pressions of the mother country, he was soon called into active public life. Mr. Floyd was elected a dele- gate from New York to the first Continental Congress, in 1774, and was one of the most active members of
287
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
that body. He had previously been appointed com- mander of the militia of Suffolk County ; and early in 1775, after his return from Congress, learning that a naval force threatened an invasion of the Island, and that troops were actually debarking, he placed him- self at the head of a division, marched toward the point of intended debarkation, and awed the invaders into a retreat to their ships. He was again returned to the General Congress, in 1775, and the numerous committees of which he was a member attest his great activity. He ably supported the resolutions of Mr. Lee, and cheerfully voted for and signed the Declara- tion of Independence. While attending faithfully to his public duties in Congress, he suffered greatly in the destruction of his property and the exile of his family from their home. After the battle of Long Island, in August, 1776, and the retreat of the American army across to York Island, his fine estate was exposed to the rude uses of the British soldiery, and his family were obliged to seek shelter and pro- tection in Connecticut. His mansion was the rendez- vous for a party of cavalry, his cattle and sheep were used as provision for the British army, and for seven years he derived not a dollar of income from his prop- erty. Yet he abated not a jot in his zeal for the cause, and labored on hopefully, alternately in Congress and in the Legislature of New York .* Through his skill-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.