George Clymer, Pennsylvania

1739-1813

Representing Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress

George Clymer, an orphan at an early age, was reared by a paternal uncle, who gave him a good education. He apprenticed in his uncle's counting room to prepare for a mercantile profession. He was a patriot partisan and leader in the disturbances in Philadelphia resulting from the Tea Act and the Stamp Act, and a Member of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety in 1773.

He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776 and served several years in such important committees as the Board of War and the Treasury Board. He played a large part, along with Robert Morris, in strengthening the authority of General Washington and improving the provisions of the Continental army.

In 1781 he was a member of the Legislature of his native state. He returned to the Congress in 1788 under the new constitution where he supported the presidency of George Washington. He was a revenue officer in Pennsylvania during the Whisky Rebellion. His last national public duty was a mission to the Cherokees in 1796. In retirement he was elected first president of Philadelphia Bank, first president of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and vice-president of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society. He held all of these posts until his death in January of 1813.

From: US History.org

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Clymer was orphaned in 1740, only a year after his birth in Philadelphia. A wealthy uncle reared and informally educated him and advanced him from clerk to full-fledged partner in his mercantile firm, which on his death he bequeathed to his ward. Later Clymer merged operations with the Merediths, a prominent business family, and cemented the relationship by marrying his senior partner's daughter, Elizabeth, in 1765.

Motivated at least partly by the impact of British economic restrictions on his business, Clymer early adopted the Revolutionary cause and was one of the first to recommend independence. He attended patriotic meetings, served on the Pennsylvania council of safety, and in 1773 headed a committee that forced the resignation of Philadelphia tea consignees appointed by Britain under the Tea Act. Inevitably, in light of his economic background, he channeled his energies into financial matters. In 1775-76 he acted as one of the first two Continental treasurers, even personally underwriting the war by exchanging all his own specie for Continental currency.

In the Continental Congress (1776-77 and 1780-82) the quiet and unassuming Clymer rarely spoke in debate but made his mark in committee efforts, especially those pertaining to commerce, finance, and military affairs. During the War for Independence, he also served on a series of commissions that conducted important field investigations. In December 1776, when Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he and George Walton and Robert Morris remained behind to carry on congressional business. Within a year, after their victory at the Battle of Brandywine, Pa. (September 11, 1777), British troops advancing on Philadelphia detoured for the purpose of vandalizing Clymer's home in Chester County about 25 miles outside the city. His wife and children hid nearby in the woods.

After a brief retirement following his last term in the Continental Congress, Clymer was reelected for the years 1784-88 to the Pennsylvania legislature, where he had also served part time in 1780-82 while still in Congress. As a state legislator, he advocated a bicameral legislature and reform of the penal code and opposed capital punishment. At the Constitutional Convention, where he rarely missed a meeting, he spoke seldom but effectively and played a modest role in shaping the final document.

The next phase of Clymer's career consisted of service in the U.S. House of Representatives in the First Congress (1789-91), followed by appointment as collector of excise taxes on alcoholic beverages in Pennsylvania (1791-94). In 1795-96 he sat on a Presidential commission that negotiated a treaty with the Cherokee and Creek Indians in Georgia. During his retirement, Clymer advanced various community projects, including the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and served as the first president of the Philadelphia Bank. At the age of 73, in 1813, he died at Summerseat, an estate a few miles outside Philadelphia at Morrisville that he had purchased and moved to in 1806. His grave is in the Friends Meeting House Cemetery at Trenton, NJ.

From: National Archives