age and ill-health, he missed few if any sessions, lent his prestige, soothed passions, and compromised disputes. In his twilight years, working on his Autobiography, Franklin could look back on a fruitful life as the toast of two continents. Energetic nearly to the last, in 1787 he was elected as first president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery-a cause to which he had committed himself as early as the 1730's. His final public act was signing a memorial to Congress recommending dissolution of the slavery system. Shortly thereafter, in 1790 at the age of 84, Franklin passed away in Philadelphia and was laid to rest in Christ Church Burial Ground. Nicholas Gilman NEW HAMPSHIRE Gilman's career ranged from clerking in a store to long tours of duty in the U.S House of Representatives and Senate. Although never in the front rank of politics, he associated with some of the leading Americans of his time. He was one of the three bachelor signers. Member of a distinguished New Hampshire family and second son in a family of eight, Nicholas Gilman was born at Exeter in 1755. He received his education in local schools and worked at his father's general store. When the War for Independence began, he enlisted in the New Hampshire element of the Continental Army, soon won a captaincy, and served throughout the war. Gilman returned home, again helped his father in the store, and immersed himself in politics. In the period 1786-88 he sat in the Continental Congress, though his attendance record was poor. In 1787 he represented New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention. He did not arrive at Philadelphia until July 21, by which time much major business had already transpired. Never much of a debater, he made no speeches and played only a minor part in the deliberations. He did, however, serve on the committee on postponed matters. He was also active in obtaining New Hampshire's acceptance of the Constitution and in shepherding it through the Continental Congress. Gilman later became a prominent Federalist politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1789 until 1797; and in 1793 and 1797 was a Presidential elector. He also sat in the New Hampshire legislature in the years 1795, 1802, and 1804, and in 1805-8 and 1811-14 held the office of State treasurer. Meantime, Gilman's political philosophy had begun to drift toward the Democratic-Republicans. In 1802, when he was defeated for the U.S. Senate, President Jefferson appointed him as a bankruptcy commissioner, and 2 years later as a DemocraticRepublican he won election to the U.S. Senate. He was still sitting there when he passed away at Philadelphia, while on his way home from the Nation's Capital, in 1814 at the age of 58. He is interred at the Winter Street Cemetery at Exeter. Gorham, an eldest child, was born in 1738 at Charlestown, Mass., into an old Bay Colony family of modest means. His father operated a packet boat. The youth's education was minimal. When he was about 15 years of age, he was apprenticed to a New London, Conn., merchant. Quitting in 1759, he headed back to his hometown and established a business, which quickly succeeded. In 1763 he wed Rebecca Call, who was to bear nine children. Gorham began his political career as a public notary, but soon won election to the colonial legislature (1771-75). During the Revolution, he unswervingly backed the Whigs. He was a delegate to the provincial congress (1774-75), member of the Commonwealth's Board of War (1778-81), delegate to the constitutional convention (1779-80), and representative in both the upper (1780) and lower (1781-87) houses of the legislature, including the speakership of the latter in 1781, 1782, and 1785. In the latter year, though he apparently lacked formal legal training, he began a judicial career as judge of the Middlesex County court of common pleas (1785-96). During this same period, in 1788-89 he sat on the Governor's Council. During the war, British troops had ravaged much of Gorham's property, though by privateering and speculation he managed to recoup most of his fortune. Despite these pressing business concerns and his State political and judicial activities, he also managed to serve the Nation. He was a Member of the Continental Congress (1782-83 and 1785-87), from June 1786 until January 1787 holding the office of President. The next year, at age 49, Gorham attended the Constitutional Convention. A moderate nationalist, he played an influential part in the sessions, all of which he attended. He spoke often, acted as chairman of the committee of the whole, and sat on the committee of detail. As a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he stood behind the Constitution. Some unhappy years followed. Gorham did not serve in the new Government he had helped to create. In 1788 he and Oliver Phelps of Windsor, Conn., and possibly others, contracted to purchase from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 6 million acres of unimproved land in western New York. The price was $1 million in devalued Massachusetts scrip. Gorham and Phelps quickly succeeded in clearing Indian title to 2,600,000 acres in the eastern section of the grant and sold much of it to settlers. Problems soon arose, however. Massachusetts scrip rose dramatically in value, enormously swelling the purchase price of the vast tract. By 1790 the two men were unable to meet their payments. The result was a financial crisis that led to Gorham's insolvency-and a fall from the heights of Boston society and political esteem. Gorham died in 1796 at the age of 58 and is buried at the Phipps Street Cemetery in Charlestown, Mass. Alexander Hamilton NEW YORK Hamilton, a brilliant and pragmatic Hamilton was born about 1755, apparently on the island of Nevis, in the Leeward group, British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a common-law marriage between a poor itinerant Scotch merchant of aristocratic descent and an EnglishFrench Huguenot mother who was a planter's daughter. In 1765, after the father had moved his family elsewhere in the Leewards to St. Croix in the Danish (now United States) Virgin Islands, he deserted his wife and two sons. The mother, who opened a small store to make ends meet, and a Presbyterian clergyman provided Alexander with a basic education, and somehow he learned to speak fluent French. When he was 12 to 14 years old, about the time of his mother's death, he became an apprentice clerk at Christiansted in a mercantile establishment, whose proprietor became one of his benefactors. Recognizing his ambition and superior intelligence, they raised a fund for his education. In 1772, bearing letters of introduction, Hamilton traveled to New York City. Patrons he met there arranged for him to attend Barber's Academy at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), N.J. During this time, he met and stayed for a while at the home of William Livingston, who would one day be a fellow signer of the Constitution. Late the next year, 1773, Hamilton entered King's College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, but the Revolution interrupted his studies. Although not yet 20 years of age, in 1774-75 Hamilton wrote several widely read pro-Whig pamphlets. Right after the war broke out, he accepted an artillery captaincy and fought in the principal campaigns of 1776-77. In the latter year, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel, he joined the staff of General Washington as secretary and aide-de-camp and soon became his close confidant as well. In 1780 Hamilton wed New Yorker Elizabeth Schuyler, whose family was rich and politically powerful; they were to have eight children. In 1781, after some disagreements with Washington, he took a command position under Lafayette in the Yorktown, Va., campaign (1781). He resigned his commission that November. Hamilton then read law at Albany and quickly entered practice, but public service soon attracted him. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782-83. In the latter year, he established a law office in New York City. Because of his interest in strengthening the central Government, he represented his State at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, where he urged the calling of the Constitutional Convention. In 1787 Hamilton served in the legislature, which appointed him as a delegate to the Convention. He played a surprisingly small part in the debates, apparently because he was frequently absent on legal business, his extreme nationalism put him at odds with most of the delegates, and he was frustrated by the conservative views of his two fellow-New York delegates. He did, however, sit on the committee of style, and was the only one of the three delegates from his State who signed the finished document. Hamilton's part in New York's ratification the next year was substantial, though he felt the Constitution was deficient in many |