﻿ Hugh Williamson

Hugh Williamson

Hugh Williamson ( born December 5, 1735 Chester County, Pennsylvania, † May 22, 1819 in New York City ) was an American politician. Between 1790 and 1793 he represented the state of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was also one of the signers of the Constitution of the United States.


Hugh Williamson grew up during the British colonial period. He attended the common schools and graduated in 1757 with the first graduating class of the University of Pennsylvania. After an 1858 completed theological studies he worked until 1760 as a preacher. A post he gave up for health reasons. He then taught at the Philadelphia College of Mathematics. After studying medicine in Edinburgh ( Scotland) and Utrecht (Netherlands ), he began to practice as a physician in Philadelphia. In addition, Williamson was involved in trade and as a writer. He became a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 1773 he was a member of the astrological Commission, which observed the passage between the planets Venus and Mercury. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he was talking to in England. He returned in 1776 returned to America where he settled in Edenton (North Carolina). During the Revolutionary War he was in charge now following 1779-1782 the medical department of the troops from North Carolina. At this time he also began a political Lauifbahn.

Between 1782 and 1785 Williamson sat as an MP in the House of Representatives from North Carolina. During the same period, and again in 1788 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. In 1787 he was a delegate attended the meeting to draft the constitution of the United States, whose signatories he belonged. In 1789 he was a member of the Commission, which ratified this Constitution for the State of North Carolina. In the elections for the first Congress in North Carolina Williamson was selected in the third constituency of his state in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he took up his new mandate on 19 March 1790. After a re-election, he could remain until March 3, 1793 Congress.

After his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives Hugh Williamson moved in 1793 to New York, where he wrote numerous literary essays. This dealt among other things with the history of North Carolina. Williamson was involved in his new home also in the social field, by supporting, among others, an orphanage and a hospital. The married with Mary Apthorpe politician died on 22 May 1819 in New York.