George Clymer Biography Quotes 1 Report mistakes

Early Life
George Clymer was born in Philadelphia on March 16, 1739, and died at Morrisville, Pennsylvania, on January 24, 1813. Orphaned at a young age, he was taken into the household of William Coleman, a prominent Philadelphia merchant and jurist who was closely connected to Benjamin Franklin. Under Coleman's guidance, Clymer received the practical education of a countinghouse and the intellectual habits of a civic-minded Philadelphian. This early mentorship placed him within the city's commercial and reformist circles and acquainted him with leading figures whose ideas about self-government and public credit would shape his career.

Merchant and Family Connections
Clymer became a successful merchant, learning to manage accounts, consignments, and partnerships in an Atlantic trading city. He married Elizabeth Meredith, the daughter of the wealthy merchant Reese Meredith. This alliance further integrated him into Philadelphia's mercantile elite and brought him into the orbit of Samuel Meredith, his brother-in-law, who later served as Treasurer of the United States under President George Washington. These family ties forged durable links between Clymer's commercial interests and the emerging national financial system.

Commitment to the Patriot Cause
Well before independence was declared, Clymer supported nonimportation agreements and local measures to resist imperial policies that threatened the economic autonomy of the colonies. He joined the city's patriot leadership, working alongside figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, and James Wilson, who argued that effective American liberty required both representative institutions and sound public finance. Clymer's ability to reconcile principle with practical money matters led to important assignments when the Continental Congress began organizing for war and nationhood.

Continental Congress and Revolutionary Finance
In 1775 the Continental Congress appointed Michael Hillegas and George Clymer as joint treasurers to manage the fiscal affairs of the united colonies. They oversaw early issues of continental currency and sought to maintain public confidence while Congress struggled to raise revenue. After entering the Continental Congress itself, Clymer signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. His service placed him with national leaders like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, yet his daily work often centered on committees dealing with finance and supplies. When the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, Clymer's city property was vulnerable to plunder, and his family sought safety outside the city, a disruption common to patriot leaders whose public roles made them targets.

Constitutional Framer
Clymer remained active in state and national affairs after the fighting receded. In 1787 he served as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. There he joined Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson in supporting a stronger national framework capable of regulating commerce, providing for the public credit, and sustaining the union. He signed the Constitution and advocated its ratification, convinced that the lessons of wartime finance demanded a government with the authority to tax, borrow, and manage national obligations.

Service in the First Federal Congress
Elected to the First United States Congress, Clymer represented Pennsylvania from 1789 to 1791. In the House of Representatives he supported measures proposed by Alexander Hamilton to fund the national debt, assume state obligations, establish reliable revenues through tariffs and excises, and charter a national bank. Clymer's votes reflected his long experience with public credit and his confidence that robust financial institutions would secure the independence won on the battlefield. He maintained cordial relations with President George Washington's administration and worked with fellow Pennsylvanians who anchored the new government's fiscal program.

Supervisor of the Revenue and Public Order
After leaving Congress, Clymer accepted federal executive responsibility as supervisor of the revenue for Pennsylvania, an office created to implement the excise laws. In that role he confronted resistance in the western counties, where federal taxes on distilled spirits were deeply unpopular. Although the violent flashpoints of the Whiskey Rebellion focused later on the home of Inspector John Neville, Clymer's earlier experiences in the field revealed the challenges of applying national law across regions with divergent economies and political expectations. Throughout these trials he stayed aligned with Washington and Hamilton on the necessity of law and credit as pillars of national stability.

Civic Leadership and Institutions
Beyond high politics, Clymer sustained a career of institution-building in Philadelphia. He served as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, supported learned societies, and helped guide banks and charitable organizations that underpinned the city's commercial vitality. As a director associated with the Bank of North America, he worked in the circle of Robert Morris to maintain public confidence in financial instruments and to promote habits of enterprise and thrift among merchants and artisans. His home at Summerseat in Morrisville became both a family residence and a vantage point from which he observed the growth of the new republic.

Character and Legacy
Clymer's public life joined principle to practicality. He is remembered as one of the few American statesmen to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a small company that included Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, James Wilson, Roger Sherman, and George Read. The people around him were often the nation's pivotal figures: Franklin the scientist-statesman, Washington the indispensable executive, Hamilton the architect of public finance, and colleagues like Hillegas and Meredith who built the fiscal machinery day by day. Clymer's blend of merchant's discipline and legislator's foresight helped stabilize a fragile national economy and translated revolutionary ideals into working institutions.

He died in 1813 at Summerseat, having seen the United States survive war, assemble a constitutional government, and establish the credit and commerce that would carry it forward. His career illustrates how the American founding depended not only on eloquence and arms, but also on the quieter, exacting labor of accounts, committees, and the balancing of books that make freedom durable.

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