American patriot; born in Maghera, Ireland, on the 29th of November 1729. He came to this country in 1740, studied at a seminary in New London, PA, and, after his education, conducted a Quaker school at Newcastle; removed to Philadelphia, where he became a teacher, and also carried on negotiations with the Iroquois and Delaware Indians. Like many other Irishmen, he favored resistance to the oppressive exactions of Great Britain, and in September 1774, he went with his bride, a sister of Benjamin Harrison, the Signer, to Philadelphia, where he had been chosen secretary of the first Continental Congress, and continued in that office until 1789. He was the official representative chosen to inform Washington of his election to the Presidency, and lived in Lower Merriam, Montgomery County, PA, until his death. As an author he wrote An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians (1759) and A Synopsis of the Four Evangelists, in Their Own Words (1815). He died in 1824.
