Charles Willson John Witherspoon (1723 1794) US President (1768 -94)

May 23, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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Charles Willson John Witherspoon (1723 1794) US President (1768 -94)

John Witherspoon (1722 - 1794) Born in Gifford, East Lothian. Joined the clergy, becoming an ordained minister in 1745. Emigrated to the USA in 1786. John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Pr...

John Witherspoon (1722 - 1794) Born in Gifford, East Lothian. Joined the clergy, becoming an ordained minister in 1745. Emigrated to the USA in 1786. John Witherspoon was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and a Founding Father of the United States. Helped to draft the Declaration of Independence, he was also the only clergyman to signed it, but 21 of the 56 signatories were of Scottish descent. Witherspoon embraced the concepts of Scottish common sense realism, and while president of the College of New Jersey (1768–1794; now Princeton University), became an influential figure in the development of the United States' national character. Politically active, Witherspoon was a delegate from New Jersey to the Second Continental Congress and a signatory to the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence. He was the only active clergyman and the only college president to sign the Declaration. Later, he signed the Articles of Confederation and supported ratification of the Constitution. In 1789 he was convening moderator of the First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Early life and ministry in Scotland John Knox Witherspoon was born at Gifford, a parish of Yester, at East Lothian, Scotland, as the eldest child of the Reverend James Alexander Witherspoon and Anne Walker, a descendant of John Welsh of Ayr and John Knox. This latter claim of Knox descent though ancient in origin is long disputed and without primary documentation. He attended the Haddington Grammar School, and obtained a Master of Arts from the University of Edinburgh in 1739. He remained at the university to study divinity. In 1764, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in divinity by the University of St. Andrews. Witherspoon was a staunch Protestant, nationalist, and supporter of republicanism. Consequently, he was opposed to the Roman Catholic Legitimist Jacobite rising of 1745–46. Following the Jacobite victory at the Battle of Falkirk (1746), he was briefly imprisoned at Doune Castle, which had a long-term effect on his health. He became a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) minister at Beith, Ayrshire (1745–1758), where he married Elizabeth Montgomery of Craighouse. They had ten children, with five surviving to adulthood. From 1758 to 1768, he was minister of the Laigh kirk, Paisley (Low Kirk). Witherspoon became prominent within the Church as an Evangelical opponent of the Moderate Party. During his two pastorates he wrote three well-known works on theology, notably the satire "Ecclesiastical Characteristics" (1753), which opposed the philosophical influence of Francis Hutcheson. For more facts go to Wikipedia.

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