Biography:

Prominent lawyer and philanthropist, a founder and the first president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, born April 28, 1759, in Philadelphia, died there on April 12, 1836. Educated at the Friends School in Philadelphia, and the Middle Temple, London. Returned to Philadelphia in January, 1783, and was admitted to the bar the same year. Secretary of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1786-92; member of the General Assembly, 1789; U. S. district attorney, 1791-99; a founder of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1805; chancellor of the Law Association of Philadelphia, 1827-36. Wrote "View of the Constitution of the United States," 1824. Married Sarah Coates Burge in 1783. (D. A. B. XV, 400-401.)