A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry: With an appendix, containing the Constitution of the United States, and other documentsJudson, L. Carroll (Levi Carroll)
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A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry: With an appendix, containing the Constitution of the United States, and other documents
Judson, L. Carroll (Levi Carroll)
Henry, Patrick, 1736-1799; United States. Declaration of Independence -- Signers; Washington, George, 1732-1799
In 1782 he was appointed by Robert Morris financial receiver for the
state of New Hampshire, which conferred upon him the highest eulogium
for integrity and honesty. The office was arduous, unpopular, and
irksome, but he performed its duties faithfully until the 2nd of
July, 1784, when he resigned. In conjunction with the many honourable
stations he filled, he was appointed a judge of the superior court
on the 20th of June, 1782, and on the 25th of December, 1784, was
appointed a justice of the peace and quorum throughout the state,
which offices he held to the day of his death. He was also one of
the commissioners on the behalf of Connecticut, who met at Trenton
to settle the unpleasant controversy between that state and the
commonwealth of Pennsylvania, relative to the lands in Wyoming valley.
In all the multiform public duties that devolved upon him, he acquitted
himself nobly, and retained, to his last moments, the entire confidence
of his country. He possessed a strong and analyzing mind, a clear head,
a good heart, and deep penetration of thought. In all the relations of
private and public life, from the cabin boy up to the lofty pinnacle
of fame on which he perched, he maintained a reputation pure as the
virgin sheet. During the latter part of his life, he suffered much
from disease in his chest, which terminated his useful and patriotic
career on the 28th of November, 1785. Agreeably to his request before
his death, his body underwent a post-mortem examination. His heart was
found ossified; the valves were united to the aorta, and an aperture,
not larger than a knitting needle, was all that remained for the
passage of the blood in its circulation. This accounted for his having
often fainted when any sudden emotion excited a rapid flow of his life
stream.
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, ESQ.
Times of high excitement, terminating in an important crisis, big with
interests and events, tend greatly to the developement of character and
talent. Thus, during the revolution, many talents were brought to light
and action, that a supremacy of kingly power would have crushed in
embryo, and left them to perish, unseen and unknown.
Amongst the actors on that memorable stage we find a variety of
characters, showing the powers of mind in all their varied forms and
shades, from the sedate and grave Washington, to the sprightly and
witty Hopkinson, and the pithy and original Franklin.
FRANCIS HOPKINSON was the son of Thomas Hopkinson, of Philadelphia,
born in 1737. His father was a man of superior talents and high
attainments, his mother was one of the best of Heaven’s gifts. At the
age of fourteen, death robbed Francis of his father, and left his
mother to struggle, with limited means, with all the accumulating
difficulties of maintaining and educating a large family of fatherless
children.
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