ge
Clymer George
Clymer
The British wrecked his house while his family hid nearby.
Still, Clymer advanced the cause of freedom....do or
die.
George Clymer,
born 1739 in Philadelphia, was the son of Christopher Clymer, a sea
captain, and Deborah Fitzwater, a Quaker disowned for marrying Clymer, an
Episcopalian. George became orphaned as an infant, was raised and provided
an informal education by a maternal aunt, Hannah Coleman, and her husband
William, a respected Quaker merchant. Clymer apprenticed in Coleman's
counting room to prepare for a mercantile profession, using
his spare time to read classic literature, law, history, politics, and science.
He began a business for himself with Quaker Reese Meredith (a friend to George
Washington), became interested in Reese's daughter Elizabeth, and later married
her.
George Clymer was quick
to notice ever-increasing unfairness of Great Britain to the colonies.
Though engaging in war was contrary to the standards of his religion, he
assessed that becoming a willing lickspigot to the British whims was cowardly and worse
than suicide. He became a captain in a volunteer army to defend his
province and was to later become instrumental in preventing British tea from
being sold in Philadelphia. In 1775, Clymer was a member of the council of
safety and became one of the first continental treasurers. The next year,
he was elected a member of the continental congress where he quietly but firmly signed the
Declaration. That same year, he visited Ticonderoga with Richard Stockton
to assess their northern army's ability to defend the state.
When General Washington had just been defeated at Brandywine, the British were continuing on toward Philadelphia. Congress adjourned to Baltimore, leaving behind George Clymer, Robert Morris, and George Walton to continue business as necessary. The British found Clymer's residence and were proceeding to tear it down until they learned they had the wrong house. Tories showed British soldiers where the Clymer's country home in Chester County was, causing the house to be vandalized, belongings destroyed or stolen including a stock of well-cultivated wine. Mrs. Clymer, who had been hiding out at the country home, saved herself and her children by heading with them back toward the city.
Amidst all the garboil, Clymer proceeded to Pittsburgh to enlist for war several Indian tribes in the area, particularly the warriors from the Shawnee and Delaware Indians. Upon this mission of enlistment, he narrowly escaped a tomahawk because he took an unusual road to visit a nearby friend. The road he normally would have taken experienced a party of killcows who had just murdered a white man.
In 1780, Clymer was again elected
to congress. He moved his family to Princeton so his children could attend
the seminary and receive a useful education. In 1784, he became a member
in the general assembly of Pennsylvania, later taking part in the convention
that formed a new state constitution. It was said of him that, "Under the
appearance of manners that were cold and indolent, he concealed a mind that was
always warm and active towards the interests of his country. He was well
informed in history ancient and modern, and frequently displayed flashes of wit
and humor in conversation."
He presided over the
Philadelphia bank and over the Academy of Fine Arts. He was elected a vice
president of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society in 1805. These offices
he held at the time of his death in 1813 at 74 years old.
His grave is in the Friends Meeting
House Cemetery at Trenton, N.J. [a Quaker church cemetery].
Robert G. Ferris (editor), Signers of the Constitution: Historic Places
Commemorating the Signing of the Constitution, published by the United
States Department of the Interior, National Park Service: Washington, D.C.
(revised edition 1976)
Joseph
Hopkinson delivered the following eulogy before the Academy of Fine Arts
"At different periods of our national
history, from the first bold step which was taken in the march of independence,
to its full and perfect consummation in the establishment of a wise and
effective system of government, whenever the virtue and talents of our country
were put in requisition, Mr. Clymer was found with the selected few, to whom our
rights and destinies were committed."......
"When posterity shall ponder
on the declaration of July, 1776, and admire, with deep amazement and
veneration, the courage and patriotism, the virtue and self-devotion of the
deed, they will find the name of Clymer there. When the strength and splendor of
this empire shall hereafter be displayed in the fullness of maturity, (heaven
grant we reach it,) and the future politician shall look at that scheme of
government, by which the whole resources of a nation have been thus brought into
action; by which power has been maintained, and liberty not overthrown; by which
the people have been governed and directed, but not enslaved or oppressed ; they
will find that Clymer was one of the fathers of the country, from whose wisdom
and experience the system emanated. Nor was t
he
confidence, which had grown out of his political life and services, his only
claim to the station which he held in this institution. Although his modest,
unassuming spirit never sought public displays of his merit, but rather withdrew
him from the praise, that was his due; yet he could not conceal from his
friends, nor his friends from the world, the extraordinary improvement of his
mind. Retired, studious, contemplative, he was ever adding something to his
knowledge, and endeavoring, to make that knowledge useful. His predominant
passion was to promote every scheme for the improvement of his country, whether
in science, agriculture, polite education, the useful or the fine arts.
Accordingly, we find his name in every association for these purposes; and
wherever we find him, we also find his usefulness. Possessed of all that
sensibility and delicacy, essential to taste, he had of course a peculiar
fondness for the fine arts, elegant literature, and the refined pursuits of a
cultivated genius. It was in the social circle of friendship that his
acquirements were displayed and appreciated, and although their action was
communicated from this circle to a wider sphere, it was with an enfeebled force.
His intellects were strong by nature, and made more so by culture and study; but
he was diffident and retired. Capable of teaching, he seemed only anxious to
learn. Firm, but not obstinate; independent, but not arrogant; communicative,
but not obtrusive, he was at once the amiable and instructive companion. His
researches had been various, and, if not always profound, they were competent to
his purposes, and beyond his pretensions. Science, literature, and the arts, had
all a share of his attention, and it was only by a frequent intercourse with
him, we discovered how much he knew of each. The members of this board have all
witnessed the kindness and urbanity of his manners. Sufficiently fixed in his
own opinions, he gave a liberal toleration to others, assuming no offensive or
unreasonable control over the conduct of those with whom he was associated." ...
"In this most useful virtue, Mr. Clymer was preeminent. During the seven years he held the presidency of this academy, his attention to the duties of the station were without remission. He excused himself from nothing that belonged to his office; he neglected nothing. He never once omitted to attend a meeting of the directors, unless prevented by sickness or absence from the city; and these exceptions were of very rare occurrence. He was indeed the first to come; so that the board never waited a moment for their president. With other public bodies to which he was attached, I understand, he observed the same punctual and conscientious discharge of his duty. It is thus that men make themselves useful, and evince that they do not occupy places of this kind merely as empty and undeserved compliments, but for the purpose of rendering all the services which the place requires of them."
Rev. Charles A. Goodrich Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. New York: William Reed & Co., 1856. Pages 284-291. Wives of the Signers: The Women Behind the Declaration of Independence, by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1997). Orignaly Published in 1912 as volume 3 of The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons). Pages 195-197. George Clymer Papers, American Philosophical Society. Monochrome collection contributed by Dr. Alexander Grey of the Itus Group. George Clymer George Clymer
Ship of the U.S. Navy: APA-27 USS George Clymer
II Corinthians 4:16
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.