Philip Livingston

Philip Livingston ( born January 15, 1716 in Albany, New York, † June 12, 1778 in York, Pennsylvania ) was a merchant, politician and signer of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Life

He was born into the prominent Livingston family into it. His grandfather, who immigrated to New York and a large estate controlled, which was called Good Livingston ( Livingston Manor ), as was Robert, 1st Lord of the Manor known. His father Philip Livingston was the second Lord of the Manor. This Philip was his fourth son, which is why he could not inherit. The wife of the second Lord of Manor was a daughter of the mayor of Albany ( New York).

Livingston attended Yale College, graduating in 1737 from. Then he settled in New York City and pursued a commercial career. He was known as a dealer and was elected to the City Council in 1754. Until 1763 he was confirmed each year in office. In 1754 he was sent as a delegate to the Albanykongress. There he joined the delegates from various other colonies to negotiate with the Indians and to discuss general plans in the context of the French and Indian War. They also developed a plan for a union of the colonies, but this was rejected by King George II.

Livingston has been an active supporter of the establishment and equipment of troops for the war and was in 1759 elected to the House of Representatives of the colony. He retained the office until 1769, and served in 1768 as Speaker of the House. In October 1765, he attended the Stamp Act Congress in part, which produced the first formal protest to the crown, a prelude to the American Revolution. Livingston strongly joined the radical bloc in Congress. He joined the New York Correspondence Committee to continue the communication with the leaders of the other colonies.

As New York in 1775 a rebel government aufstellte he was the President of the Provincial Parliament. They chose him this year also one of the delegates to the Continental Congress. In Congress, he strongly supported the separation of Great Britain and signed in 1776 with other delegates the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Following the adoption of the Constitution of New York, he was in 1777 elected to the State Senate, while he remained in the Continental Congress. He died suddenly while he attended the sixth session of the Congress in York, Pennsylvania, and is buried there on the lookout hill cemetery. Livingston was a Presbyterian, Masonic and one of the first supporters of King's College, now Columbia University.

His brother was Governor William Livingston; his cousin Robert R. Livingston was U.S. Congressman and Chancellor. His wife Christina Ten Broeck was a great-granddaughter of the Mayor of Albany ( New York) One of his daughters, Catherina, married Stephen Van Rensselaer; Stephen Van Rensselaer III, whose son married Margarita Schuyler - a daughter of Philip Schuyler.