George Clymer
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John Clymer is the Author / Producer of this educational program.
George Clymer is the authors eighth great grandfather.
George Clymer was a signer of
the Declaration of Independence
the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
The United States History
CLYMER, GEORGE
March 16, 1739 - January 24, 1813
GEO
He was a prosperous and well connected Philadelphia merchant of Indefatigable Energy in the service of his state and nation in the early formative period.
Descended from a Bristol England immigrant grandfather, Richard Clymer, and father, Christopher Clymer, and a Philadelphia mother, Deborah Fitzwater Clymer, he lost both parents in 1740.
Clymer was orphaned in 1740, only a year after his birth in Philadelphia.
George came under the guardianship and educational direction of an uncle, William Coleman, a friend of Ben Franklin and prosperous merchant.
The wealthy uncle reared and informally educated him.
Living in Coleman’s house with access to his large library, George acquired an early taste for reading. He began a business career first as clerk, then partner, then successor and legatee of his uncles’ business.
After association with Robert Ritchie, he was later taken into partnership by Reese Meredith and his son, establishing the firm of Meredith’s’ & Clymer, and continuing as partner, after the death of the elder Meredith, until 1782.
George Clymer had married Reese Meredith’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth in 1765, and at the Meredith home had become acquainted with the young George Washington who was a frequent visitor there.
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.
A deep friendship between George Clymer and George Washington was thus established that lasted through out the Revolution and George Clymer’s subsequent career in public service. An early and ardent patriot, Clymer attended all Patriotic Revolutionary meetings, becoming Captain of Volunteers in Gen. Cadwater’s Brigade, and as Chairman of a Committee of the “Philadelphia Tea Party” 1773, forcing the resignation of the merchants appointed by the British to sell the tea under the tea act.
He became a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, was one of the two First Continental Treasurers (July 29, 1775- August 6, 1776), and then entered Congress as a Pennsylvania delegate (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.
He supported the continental loan and was one of the first subscribers and solicitors for it. George Clymer, Personally Underwriting the War, he exchanged all his specie for his new continental currency, and paid a special visit to Boston to gain further revolutionary information and inspiration.
He paid for our war.
Appointed with Rush, Wilson, Ross, and Taylor (July 20,1776) to replace Pennsylvania (the delegates who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence), George Clymer, though not present when it was adopted, realized, “His dearest wish”, when he signed the document, for he had been among the first to advocate complete independence from Britain.
His valuable business acumen was utilized on varied special and standing committees in both the Continental and the First United States Congresses.
Commissioned (September 26, 1776) with Stockton to inspect the Northern Army at Ticonderoga.
Here George Clymer Advocated Expansion of Washington’s Powers.
In December 1776, when Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he and George Walton and Robert Morris remained behind to carry on congressional business.
Left with Robert Moris and George Walton as a committee for congressional business in Philadelphia when the advance of the British drove the government to Baltimore (December 1776), he worked so incessantly that if he visited his family, Twenty Five Miles distant in Chester County, it was only for a night and he was back at his desk the next morning. That is a Long, Hard, Fast, Pounding through Darkness, Alone, Ride. And a "Wanted" by the British man at that.
After his re-election to Congress (March 12, 1777), his service on the boards of war and of the treasury and on the committee to protect Philadelphia was so strenuous that after three months he was obliged, temporarily, to retire. He was again on duty with Livingston and Gerry as a commissioner to investigate and Remedy the Difficulties in Washington’s Commissariat (July 11, 1777), and he continued to serve in Congress until after September 14, 1777, although then not re-elected. As Commissioner of Prisoners, he received the Hessian captives and sent those able to travel to Allentown.
* Mary Elizabeth Clymer ( Geo's Wife) was also very well known to the British. Mary had been involved in Many Hell Fire Skirmishes against the British and she herself had caused considerable damages to the enemy. Mary burnt tax collector houses and she fearlessly lead a group of men and women into a dozen Bloody Liberty Fights. Hand to Hand Combat. Blood and Guts......
She was an Extremely Brave Woman with Backbone and Substance. Out Front, Leading the Troops and Showing the way, who fought outright and directly for the cause.
The British troops, within a year, after their victory at Brandywine, Pa. (September 11, 1777), Ransacked and vandalized George Clymer’s house in Chester County about 25 miles outside the city.
The British troops did so on a detour from the march to Philadelphia.
The British troops set out for the Sole Purpose of Terrorizing George Clymer’s family, destroying all his furniture and store of liquors.
His wife Mary Elizabeth and Children hid nearby in the woods.
The British then placed a higher price on George Clymer’s head. They wanted to Hang the Entire Clymer Family.
Inevitably, in light of his economic background, he channeled his energies into financial matters.
During the War for Independence, George also served on a series of commissions that conducted important field investigations.
The expedition organized by Congress to reduce Detroit and Prevent an Indian War was the result of a report made by Clymer and two fellow commissioners sent, December 11, 1777 to Fort Pitt to investigate disorders inspired by the British.
From November 24, 1780 to November 12, 1782 George Clymer was for the third time in Congress, laboring almost continuously as chairman or member of special or standing committees, such as those of commerce or finance.
Called from a brief retirement at Princeton, whither he had gone to educate his children, as a legislator of Pennsylvania he wrote the report for mitigating the penal code, lessening capital crimes, and restricting public employment of convicts.
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.
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.
He was one of the petitioners for a bicameral legislature and a supporter of the old constitution of the confederation.
As a Pennsylvania delegate to the Federal Convention he spoke little, but to the point, served upon important financial committees, and Signed the Constitution.
He carried his rigid republicanism into the First United States Congress November 1788, Clymer supporting Washington, but favoring liberal naturalization, and a pro-French and Jefferson economic policy.
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.
Declining re-election, he fulfilled two successive commissions to which George Washington appointed him and retired from public life July 31,1796, after an almost unbroken service of over twenty years, and preferment which he had Never Solicited. Subsequently he promoted community interests as first President respectively of the
Philadelphia Bank and of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1805 as Vice President of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society, retaining these offices till his death in 1813.
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.
Diffident, retiring, no orator, speaking seldom and briefly, but with deep reasoning,
he never Sought Nor Bought Office, and
“George Clymer was never heard to speak ill of any one.”
To read the The Declaration of Independence Click Here.
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