Signer of the Declaration of Independence, born in Ireland; emigrated to America, and settled in Pennsylvania in 1729. Upon the call for volunteers against Great Britain in 1774, he enlisted the first company raised in Pennsylvania. He was one of the delegates to the convention called for June 18, 1776, and proclaimed himself in favor of declaring the colonies independent of the mother country. He participated in the deliberations of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of July 15, 1776, and five days later he was elected a representative in the Continental Congress, where he served until 1778, going the next year to the legislature of Pennsylvania as a representative, and in 1784 he was again elected to Congress. He died in York, PA, on the 11th of July 1806.
