CHARLES PINCKNEY.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

CHARLES PINCKNEY, of South Carolina, was born at Charleston in 1758. He received as good an education as his native town afforded, and then studied law in the office of his father. He was chosen a member of the State Legislature in 1779, and one year later was made a prisoner by the British forces. He too experienced the harshest treatment from his captors. Sent to St. Augustine, Fla., soon after his

capture, he was for a considerable time confined on board a prisonship. After the war had ended, he returned to the Charleston bar, but in 1785 was chosen to represent his State in Congress, a position which he held for three years. During that period he served as a member of the Constitutional Convention with great honor to himself and with credit to his State. A form of government, drawn up by Charles Pinckney, was one of the sources from which the Constitution was compiled, and it may fairly be said that he showed greater powers of constructive statesmanship than any other of the distinguished men who made up the South Carolina delegation. In the State Convention, called to ratify the Constitution, he was one of the ablest speakers in its favor. He was chosen Governor in 1789, and in 1790 was President of the Constitutional Convention. He served as Governor until 1798, and was then elected to the United States Senate. In 1801 he was made minister to Spain. In 1805 he returned to America and was at once elected to the State Legislature, and then to the Governorship. In 1818 he became a member of Congress and was an active opponent of the Missouri Compromise, against which he made a speech which was regarded by his colleagues as the most effective of his life. He died in 1824.

WILLIAM FEW.

WILLIAM FEW.

GEORGIA.

WILLIAM FEW, of Georgia, was a native of Maryland, and was born in Baltimore County, in 1748. When he was ten years of age his father's family removed to the State of North Carolina. His early youth was hampered by the severest influences of poverty, and he was given the advantage of only a year's attendance at the village school. The son of a farmer, he was expected to give all his time to the daily tasks laid out for him, and no boy of the time ever struggled harder for an opportunity to improve himself. The books that came into his hands were very few, but moved by an insatiable anxiety to learn, he spent all of his spare time in study. He used to attend the sessions of the County Court when he could get a chance to do so, and it was there that he gained the first rudiments of legal knowledge. In 1776 he removed to Georgia, and soon afterwards was chosen a member of the Executive Council. He joined the militia force of Georgia when the State was invaded and was made Lieutenant-Colonel of a Richmond County regiment. From 1778 to 1780 he was a member of the State Legislature, and then served in Congress until 1783. He was re-elected to Congress in 1786, and in the same year chosen a member of the Constitutional Convention. He served as United States Senator from Georgia from 1789 to 1793. He then began the practice of law, and in 1799 decided to remove to the State of New York, when he took up his residence at Fishkill. From 1801 to 1804 he served in the Legislature of the Empire State. He died in 1828.

1778, he was induced to remove to Philadelphia. Mr. Ingersoll did not hesitate to avow himself an adherent of the Colonial cause, and he was one of the numerous solid men of Philadelphia who gave to the patriotic party in that city a social standing far superior to that which it enjoyed in New York or even in Boston. He did not at first approve of the idea of absolute independence from Great Britain, but the logic of events soon brought him over to that side of the question. He never held any position in connection with the general government, either before or after the sessions of the Constitutional Convention. He never held any other place in any popular or representative body. In that Convention he spoke but little. When he said anything it was on behalf of the Hamiltonian theory of government so generally favored by the Pennsylvania delegates. Mr. Ingersoll is looked upon as having been the best lawyer of his time in the management of a jury trial. He was the first Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and held the place under Gov. Mifflin for nine years. For a short time he was President of the District Court of Philadelphia. He died in 1822.

NATHANIEL GORHAM.

MASSACHUSETTS.

NATHANIEL GORHAM, of Massachusetts, was born at Charlestown in 1738. He attended the common schools, but did not receive a university education, and early entered business in his native town. He won the esteem of his fellow citizens, and was made a Town Councillor in 1771 at a time when the spirit of resistance to tyranny was just beginning to ferment in the bosom of the Bay State men, preparing them for the stirring events of Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill. Then Mr. Gorham became a member of the Legislature, and afterwards a member of the State Board of War, in which he took an active part in raising resources for carry. ing on the war. He was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention in 1779, and President of Congress from 1785 to 1787. In

NATHANIEL GORHAM.

Beadleston & Woerz, Ales, Porter,

and Lager Beer,

Empire Brewery,

291 West 10th Street, New York.

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the Constitutional Convention he played an important part owing to the desire of General Washington to take part in debate upon the floor. The latter asked Mr. Gorham to take the chair while the body was in Committee of the Whole. For three months the Massachusetts delegate proved himself an efficient, firm and temperate presiding officer, and justified the trust reposed in him by the great Virginian. After the work of the Convention was over Mr. Gorham did good work in securing the adoption of the Constitution by his own State. He was elected a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and retained that office until his death on June 11, 1796.

NICHOLAS GILMAN.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

THE youngest member of the Convention was Nicholas Gilman, of New Hampshire. He was born in 1762, and was a son of Nicholas Gilman, State Treasurer of New Hampshire. Mr. Gilman, though but 25 years of age, impressed himself upon his colleagues in the Constitutional Convention by his grasp of the questions involved, as well as by the fervency of his patriotism. He was at that time a lawyer in first-rate practice in his own State, and is said to have been one of the best in the country. Those who saw him for the first time, thought him only a boy. His face had none of the hardened lines of mature manhood, but when he took part in conversation or in debate everyone was surprised at the comprehensive knowledge and sound sense displayed by this youthful son of the Granite State. A mere child at the time when the Revolutionary Rubicon was passed in 1776, he had about him none of the traditional feelings of a man who had once owed allegiance to an English King. He represented Young America in what may now be regarded, in the light of results, as the greatest of all the deliberative bodies whose sessions are mentioned in the world's history. Mr. Gilman was elected to the First Federal Congress, and served in the capacity of Congressman till 1797. In 1805 he became United States Senator, and held that position until his death, which occurred at the age of 52 years, on May 2, 1814.

NICHOLAS GILMAN.