Eliphalet Dyer (1721–1807)

American jurist, born in Windham, CT, on the 26th of September 1721; died there on the 13th of May 1807. He was graduated from Yale in 1740, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1746. During the French and Indian wars he was lieutenant-colonel of a regiment sent against Crown Point in 1775, and afterward was made colonel of a regiment. He was the originator of the plan to establish a Connecticut colony in the valley of the Susquehanna, and in 1763 was sent to England as agent of the company. From 1766 to 1793 he was judge of the Connecticut superior court. A delegate to the first Continental Congress in 1744, he was a member of each succeeding Congress, with the exception of that of 1776 and 1777, and became member of the Committee of Safety in 1775.