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WILSON, James, a Delegate from Pennsylvania; born in Carskerdo, near St. Andrews, Scotland,
September 14, 1742; attended the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh; immigrated
to the United States in 1765; resided in New York City until 1766, when he moved to Philadelphia,
Pa.; tutor in the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania); studied law; was
admitted to the bar in 1767; practiced in Reading and Carlisle, Pa., and for a short time, during
Howes occupation of Philadelphia, in Annapolis, Md.; also engaged in literary pursuits; member of
the Provincial Convention of Pennsylvania in 1774; Member of the Continental Congress 1775-1777,
1783, and 1785-1786; chosen colonel of the Fourth Battalion of Associators in 1775; advocate
general for France in America and guided that countrys legal relations to the Confederation; member
of the board of war; brigadier general of the State militia; a signer of the Declaration of Independence;
a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Federal Convention in 1787 and a delegate to the State ratification
convention; settled in Philadelphia in 1778 and resumed the practice of law; Associate Justice of the
United States Supreme Court 1789-1798; first professor of law in the College of Philadelphia in 1790
and in the University of Pennsylvania when they were united in 1791; died in Edenton, N.C., August
21, 1798; interment in the Johnston burial ground on the Hayes plantation near Edenton, N.C.;
reinterment in Christ Churchyard, Philadelphia, Pa., in 1906.
BibliographySmith, Charles Page. James Wilson, Founding
Father, 1742-1798. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956.
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