American soldier and jurist, born in Lyme, CT, on the 14th of May 1737, graduated at Harvard (1756); admitted to the bar (1759); from 1762 representative in the legislature for many years; King’s attorney (1774); commanded the Sixth Connecticut Regiment at Boston (1775); brigadier-general (1776); major-general (1780). After the Revolutionary War he practiced law at Middletown, CT, and was a member of the convention for the ratification of the Constitution of the United States in 1788. He was appointed by President Washington first judge of the Northwest Territory, and was Connecticut’s commissioner to purchase from the Wyandotte Indians the tract known as the Western Reserve, in Ohio. He published a valuable paper on the antiquities of the Western States. He was drowned in Big Beaver River, OH, on the 17th of November 1789.
