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 19
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* After the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the States organized governments of their own. General Floyd was elected a Senator in the first legislative body that con- vened in New York, after the organization of the new gov- ernment, and was a most useful member in getting the new machinery into successful operation.
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ful management, in connection with one or two others, the State of New York was placed, in 1779, in a very prosperous financial condition, at a time when it seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy. The de- preciation of the continental paper money, had pro- duced alarm and distress wide-spread, and the specu- lations in bread-stuff's threatened a famine; yet Wil- liam Floyd and his associates ably steered the bark of state clear of the Scylla and Charybdis. On account of impaired health, General Floyd asked for and ob- tained leave of absence from Congress, in April, 1779, and in May he returned to New York. He was at once called to his seat in the Senate, and placed upon the most important of those committees of that body, who were charged with the delicate relations with the General Congress. In 1780 he was again elected to .Congress, and he continued a member of that body until 1783, when peace was declared. He then re- turned joyfully, with his family, to the home from which they had been exiled for seven years, and now miserably dilapidated. He declined a re-election to Congress, but served in the Legislature of his State until 1778, when, after the newly-adopted Constitution was ratified, he was elected a member of the first Con- gress that convened under that charter in the city of New York, in 1789. He declined an election the second time, and retired from public life. In 1784 General Floyd purchased some wild land upon the Mohawk, and when he retired to private life, he com- menced the clearing up and cultivation of those lands. So productive was the soil, and so attractive was the beauty of that country, that in 1803 he moved thither, although then sixty-nine years old. In 1800 he was
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chosen a Presidential Elector; and in 1801 he was a delegate in the Convention that revised the Constitu- tion of the State of New York. He was subsequently chosen a member of the State Senate. He died on the fourth day of August, 1821, when he was eighty-seven years of age. His life was a long and active one; and, as a thorough business man, his services proved of great public utility during the stormy times of the Revolution, and the no less tempestuous and dangerous period when our government was settling down upon its present steadfast basis.
LEWIS MORRIS was born at Morrisania, Westchester County, New York, in the year 1726. Being the eldest son, he inherited his father's manorial estate,* which placed him in affluent circumstances. At the age of sixteen years he entered Yale College, and under the presidency of the excellent Rev. Mr. Clapp, he re- ceived his education. He graduated with the usual honors at twenty, and returned to the supervision of his large estate. When Great Britain oppressed her children here, he hardly felt the unkind hand, yet his sympathy for others was aroused, and he was among the first to risk ease, reputation and fortune, by coa- lescing with the patriots of Massachusetts and Virginia. His clear perception saw the end from the beginning, and those delusive hopes which the repeal of obnoxious acts held forth, had no power over Lewis Morris. Neither could they influence his patriotism, for he was a stranger to a vacillating, temporizing spirit. He refused office under the Colonial Government, for
* At that time, the English primogeniture law prevaile,l in America, and even after the Revolution, Virginia and some other States retained it.
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his domestic ease and comfort were paramount to the ephemeral enjoyments of place. Hence, when he for- sook his quiet hearth, and engaged in the party strife of the Revolution, hazarding fortune and friends, no sinister motive could be alleged for his actions, and all regarded him as a patriot without selfish alloy. He looked upon war with the mother country as in- evitable ; and so boldly expressed his opinion upon these subjects, that the still rather lukewarm Colony of New York did not think proper to send him as a delegate to the General Congress of 1774." But the feelings of the people changed, and in April, 1775, Mr. Morris was elected a member of the second Con- gress that met in May following. During the summer of 1775, he was sent on a mission of pacification to the Indians on the western frontier. He was again elected to Congress in 1776, and when the ques- tion of independence came up, he boldly advocated the measure, although it seemed in opposition to all his worldly interests.t Like the others of the New York delegation, he was embarrassed by the tim- idity of the Provincial Congress, which seemed un- willing to sanction a measure so widely antipodent to all reconciliation with Great Britain. But the con-
New York was so peculiarly exposed to the attacks of the British fleet under Lord Howe, then hovering upon our coast, and so forewarned by the miseries of Boston, and the destruction of Falmouth, that Toryism, or loyalty to the crown, found ample nutriment among the people of the city. It was in the city of New York that the names of Whig and Tory were first applied to the distinctive political parties.
t He plainly foresaw what actually happened-his house ruined, his farm wasted, his forest of a thousand acres despoiled, his cattle carried off, and his family driven into oxile by the in- vading foe.
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viction of the final necessity of such a step, had been long fixed in the mind of Mr. Morris, and he did not for a moment falter. He voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence .* His family seemed to be imbued with his own sentiments, for three of his sons entered the army, served with distinction, and received the approbation of Congress.
Mr. Morris relinquished his seat in the National Council in 1777, but he was constantly employed in public service in his native State, either in its legis- lature, or as a military commander, until the adoption of the Constitution. When peace was restored, he re- turned to his scathed and almost ruined estate. He died in January, 1798, in the seventy-second year of his age.
WILLIAM WILLIAMS .- Wales was the place of nativity of the ancestors of WILLIAM WILLIAMS. They emigrated to America in 1630, and settled at Roxbury, in Massachusetts. His grandfather and father were both ministers of the Gospel, and the lat- ter was for more than half a century pastor of a Con- gregational Society, in Lebanon, Connecticut, where the subject of this brief sketch was born on the eigh- teenth of April, 1731. He entered Harvard College at the age of sixteen years, and at twenty he grad- uated with honorable distinction. He then com- menced theological studies with his father; but the agitations of the French War attracted his attention, and in 1754 he accompanied his relative, Colonel Ephraim Williams, in an expedition to Lake George,
* When, in 1777, Mr. Morris left Congress and was succeeded by his brother, Gouverneur Morris, the Convention that elected the latter, adopted a vote of thanks to him for his "long and faithful services rendered to the colony of New York."
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during which the Colonel was killed. He returned home with settled feelings of dislike toward the British officers in general, who haughtily regarded the colo- nists as inferior men, and deserving of but little of their sympathy. He abandoned the study of theology, and entered into mercantile pursuits in Lebanon. At the age of twenty-five he was chosen town-clerk, which office he held nearly half a century. He was soon afterward chosen a member of the Connecticut Assembly, and for forty-five years he held a seat there. He was always present at its sessions, except when attending to his duties in the General Congress, to which body he was elected a delegate in 1775. He was an ardent supporter of the proposition for Inde- pendence, and cheerfully signed the Declaration when it was adopted. When, in 1781, Arnold, the traitor, made an attack upon New London,* Williams, who held the office of Colonel of Militia, hearing of the event, mounted his horse and rode twenty-three miles in three hours, but arrived only in time to see the town wrapped in flames. Mr. Williams was a member of the State Convention of Connecticut, that decided upon the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States, and voted in favor of it. His con- stituents were opposed to the measure, but it was not
* Norwich, fourteen miles from New London, was the native place of Arnold. On the expedition alluded to, he first attacked Fort Trumbull, at the entrance of the Thames, on which New London stands. The garrison evacuated the fort at his approach, and, in imitation of the infamous Governor Tryon, of New York, he proceeded to lay the town in ashes. Arnold's men were chiefly Tories. On the same day, Fort Griswold, opposite, was attacked, and after its surrender, all but forty of the garrison were butchered in cold blood.
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long before they discovered their error, and applauded his firmness. In 1804 Colonel Williams declined a re-election to the Connecticut Assembly, and withdrew entirely from public life. His life and fortune* were both devoted to his country, and he went into domestic retirement with the love and veneration of his country- men attending him. He was married in 1772, to Mary, the daughter of Governor Trumbull, of Con- necticut, and the excellences of his character greatly endeared him to his family. In 1810 he lost his eldest son. This event powerfully shocked his already in- firm constitution, and he never recovered from it. His health gradually declined; and a short time before his death he was overcome with stupor. Having laid perfectly silent for four days, he suddenly called, with a clear voice, upon his departed son to attend his dying father to the world of spirits, and then expired.
* Many instances are related of the personal sacrifices of Mr. Williams for his country's good. At the commencement of the war he devoted himself to his country's service, and for that purpose he closed his mercantile business, so as not to have any embarrassments. In 1779, when the people had lost all confi- dence in the final redemption of the continental paper money, and it could not procure supplies for the army, Mr. Williams generously exchanged two thousand dollars in specie for it, and of course lost nearly the whole amount. The Count De Roch- ambeau, with a French army, arrived at Newport during the summer of 1780, as allies to the Americans, but they did not enter into the service until the next year, and remained en- camped in New England. Louzon, one of Rochambeau's cavalry officers, encamped during the winter with his legion at Lebanon, and Mr. Williams, in order to allow the officers comfortable quarters, relinquished his own house to them, and moved his family to another. Such was the self-denial of the Fathers of our Republie, and such the noble examples they present.
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He died on the second day of August, 1811, at the patriarchal age of eighty-one years.
MATTHEW THORNTON was born in Ireland, in 1714, and was brought to this country by his father when he was between two and three years of age. His father, when he emigrated to America, first settled at Wiscasset, in Maine, and in the course of a few years moved to Worcester, in Massachusetts, where he gave his son an academical education, with a view to fit him for one of the learned professions. Matthew chose the medical profession, and at the close of his prepara- tory studies, he commenced his business career in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He became eminent as a physician, and in the course of a few years ac- quired a handsome fortune. In 1745 he was appointed surgeon of the New Hampshire troops, and accom- panied them in the expedition against Louisburg .* After his return he was appointed by the royal gov- ernor (Wentworth) a Colonel of Militia, and also a Justice of the Peace. He early espoused the cause of the colonists, and soon, like many others, became ob- noxious to the governor. His popularity among the people was a cause of jealousy and alarm on the part of the chief magistrate. When the provincial gov- ernment of New Hampshire was organized, on the abdication of Governor Wentworth, Dr. Thornton was elected president.t When the provincial Congress was organized in 1776, he was chosen Speaker of the
* Louisburg was a fortress upon the island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, then in possession of the French, and was con- sidered one of the strongest fortifications in America.
t This provisional government was intrusted to men little ex- perienced in political matters, and only elected for six months, yet they were men of nerve and prudence, and under the advice and direction of the Continental Congress, they succeeded well.
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House. In September of the same year, he was ap- pointed a delegate to the Continental Congress for one year, and was permitted to sign his name to the Decla. ration of Independence, when he took his seat in No- vember .* In January, 1776 (prior to his election to the Continental Congress), he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of his State, having previously been elected a member of the Court of Common Pleas. In December of that year, he was again elected to the general Congress for one year from the twenty- third of January, 1777. At the expiration of the term he withdrew from Congress, and only engaged in public affairs as far as his office as judge required his services. He resigned his judgeship in 1782. In . 1789, Dr. Thornton purchased a farm in Exeter, where he resided until the time of his death, which took place while on a visit to his daughters in Newbury- port, Massachusetts, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1803. He was then in the eighty-ninth year of his age.
STEPHEN HOPKINS was born in the town of Provi- dence, Rhode Island, on the seventh of March, 1707. His mother was the daughter of one of the Baptist ministers of Providence. The opportunities for ac- quiring education at the time of Mr. Hopkins' child- hood, were rare, but his vigorous intellect, in a measure, become a substitute for these opportunities, and he became self-taught, in the truest sense of the
* Dr. Thornton was not the only one to whom the indulgence was granted. There were several members absent when the vote was taken on the adoption of that instrument on the fourth of July, but who, approving of the measure, subsequently . signed their names thereto.
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word. Mr. Hopkins was a farmer until 1731, when he removed to Providence and engaged in mercantile business. In 1732, he was chosen a representative for Scituate in the General Assembly, and was rechosen annually until 1738. He was again elected in 1741, and was chosen Speaker of the House of Representa- tives. From that time until 1751, he was almost every year a member and speaker of the assembly. That year he was chosen Chief Justice of the Colony. Mr. Hopkins was a delegate to the Colonial Convention held in Albany in 1754 .* He was elected Governor of the Colony in 1756, and continued in that office almost the whole time, until 1767. During the French war, Governor Hopkins was very active in promoting the enlistment of volunteers for the service, and when Montcalm seemed to be sweeping all before him at the north,t Hopkins raised a volunteer corps, and was placed at its head; but its services was not needed, and it was disbanded. He early opposed the oppres- sive acts of Great Britain, and in 1774, he held three offices of great responsibility, which were conferred upon him by the patriots-namely: Chief Justice of Rhode Island, representative in the Provincial Assem-
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* This Convention was called for the purpose of concerting measures to oppose more effectually the encroachments of the French settlers, and to hold a conference with the Six Nations of Indians. Dr. Franklin was a member of that Convention, and submitted a plan of union for the colonies which contained all the essential features of our present Constitution.
t Montcalm was commander of the French force that invaded the northern portions of New York, in 1757. He was driven back to Canada, and was attacked by the English, under Wolfe, upon the Plains of Abraham, at Quebec, where he was mortally wounded.
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bly, and delegate to the Continental Congress. At this time he introduced a bill into the Assembly of Rhode Island, to prevent the importation of slaves ; and, to show that his professions, on this point, were sincere, he manumitted all of those which belonged to himself. In 1775, he was a member of the Com- mittee of Public Safety, of Rhode Island, and was again elected a delegate to the General Congress. He was re-elected in 1776, and had the privilege of sign- ing the glorious Declaration of Independence .* He was chosen a delegate to the General Assembly for the last time, in 1778, and was one of the committee who drafted the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION for the government of the States. Notwithstanding he was then over seventy years of age, he was exceedingly active, and was almost constantly a member of some important committee. He died on the nineteenth of July, 1785, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.t
WILLIAM ELLERY, the colleague of Stephen Hop- kins, of Rhode Island, in the Continental Congress of 1776, was born at Newport, on the twenty-second of December, 1727. His father paid particular attention to his early education, and when qualified, he placed
* The signature of Mr. Hopkins is remarkable, and appears as if written by one greatly agitated by fear. But fear was no part of Mr. Hopkins's character. The cause of the tremulous appearance of his signature was a bodily infirmity, called "shaking palsy," with which he had been afflicted many years. and which obliged him to employ an amanuensis to do his writing. ยท
t He was twice married ; the first time to Sarah Scott, a mem- ber of the Society of Friends (whose meetings Mr. Hopkins was a regular attendant upon through life), in 1726; she died in 1753. In 1755 he married a widow, named Anna Smith.
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him in Harvard College, where he was distinguished as a close student, particularly of the Greek and Latin languages. He graduated in 1747, at the age of twenty years, with the most honorable commendations of the faculty. He chose the profession of the law as a business, and when he had completed his studies, he commenced practice in Newport, then one of the most flourishing places in the British American Colonies. For twenty years, Mr. Ellery practiced law success- fully, and acquired a fortune. When the troubles of the Revolution began, and, as an active patriot," he enjoyed the entire confidence of his fellow-citizens- he was called into public service. Rhode Island, although not so much oppressed as Massachusetts and New York at the beginning, was all alive with sym- pathy ; and the burning of the Gaspee, t in Providence Bay, in 1772, and the formal withdrawal of the alle- giance of the Province from the British crown, by an act of her legislature, as early as May, 1776, are an evidence of the deep, patriotic feeling with which her people were imbued. She promptly responded to the
* The active patriotism of Mr. Ellery excited the ire of the British ; and when Newport was taken possession of by the enemy, they burnt Mr. Ellery's house, and nearly all of his pro- perty was destroyed.
t The Gaspee, a British armed vessel, was, in 1772, placed in Providence harbor for the purpose of enforcing the revenue laws. The commander, like another Gesler, demanded the obeisance of every merchant vessel that entered by lowering their flags. One vessel refused, and the Gaspee gave chase. The merchantman so maneuvred as to cause the Gaspee to run aground, and before she could be got off, she was boarded at night by the crews of several boats from Providence, and all on - board were made prisoners and sent ashore; after which the vessel was set on fire, and burned to the water's edge.
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call for a general Congress, and Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery were sent as delegates. Mr. Ellery was a very active member of Congress, and on the second day of August, 1776, he signed the Declaration of Independence.
In 1778, Mr. Ellery left Congress for a few weeks, and repaired to Rhode Island, to assist in a plan to drive the British from the island .* It proved abortive, and many of the inhabitants were reduced to great distress. Mr. Ellery exerted his influence in Congress, successfully, for their relief. About the same time he was one of a committee to arrange some difficulties in which Silas Deane, and other commissioners sent to Europe, were involved.t He was also a member of another committee to arrange some difficult matters connected with the Admiralty courts. In each ca- pacity, his wisdom and sound discretion made him successful. In 1782, Mr. Ellery was designated by Congress to communicate to Major-General Greene, their estimate of his valuable services in the Southern campaigns. In 1784, he was one of a committee to whom the definite Treaty of Peace with Great Britain was referred. At this time, he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. After the new con-
* Rhode Island was taken possession of by the British in 1776, on the very day that Washington crossed the Delaware. The British troops were commanded by Sir Henry Clinton, and the squadron by Sir Peter Parker. Rhode Island remained in pos- session of the enemy three years.
f Thomas Paine and others charged Mr. Deane with the crime of prostituting his official station to selfish purposes. The in- vestigation proved the falsity of the charge, yet it was apparent that Mr. Deane, in his zeal, had been very injudicious, and therefore he was not again sent abroad.
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stitution was adopted in 1788, and the new government was put in operation, he was appointed collector for the port of Newport, which office he retained until his death, which occurred on the fifteenth of February, 1820, in the seventy-third year of his age.
ROGER SHERMAN .- One of the most remarkable men of the Revolution was Roger Sherman. He was born in Newton, Massachusetts, on the nineteenth of April, 1721. In 1723, the family moved to Stoning- ton, in that State, where they lived until the death of Roger's father, in 1741. Roger was then only nine- teen years of age, and the whole care and support of a large family devolved on him. He had been ap- prenticed to a shoemaker, but he now took charge of the small farm his father left. In 1744, they sold the farm, and moved to New Milford, in Connecticut, where an elder brother, who was married, resided. Roger performed the journey on foot, carrying his shoemaker's tools with him, and for some time he worked industriously at his trade there. Mr. Sher- man's early education was exceedingly limited, but with a naturally strong and active mind, he acquired a large stock of knowledge from books, during his apprenticeship." Not long after he settled in New Milford, he formed a partnership with his brother in a mercantile business, but all the while was very studious. IIc turned his attention to the study of law,
* It is said that while at work on his bench, he had a book so placed that he could read when it was not necessary for his eyes to be upon his work. He thus acquired a good knowledge of mathematics, and he made astronomical calculations for an almanac that was published in New York; when he was ouly twenty-seven years old.
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during his leisure hours; and so proficient did he become in legal knowledge, that he was admitted to the bar, in December, 1754 .* In 1755, Mr. Sher- man was elected a representative of New Milford, in the General Assembly of Connecticut, and the same year he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. After practicing law about five years, he was, in 1759, ap- pointed Judge of the County Court for Litchfield County. He moved to New Haven in 1761, when the same appointments were conferred upon him, and in addition, he was chosen treasurer of Yale College, from which institution, in 1765, he received the hon- orary degree of A. M. In 1766, he was elected to the senate, or upper house of the Legislature of Connecti- cut; and it was at this time that the passage of the Stamp Act was bringing the politicians of America to a decided stand in relation to the repeated aggressions of Great Britain. Roger Sherman fearlessly took part with the patriots, and was a leader among them in Connecticut, until the war broke out. He was elected a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Con- gress, in 1774, and was present at the opening on the fifth of September. He was one of the most active members of that body, and was appointed on the Committee to prepare a draft of a Declaration of In- dependence ; a document to which he affixed his signa- ture with hearty good-will, after it was adopted by Congress. Although his duties in Congress, during the war, were almost incessant, yet he was at the same time a member of the Committee of Safety of Con-
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