CLYMER, George, American statesman: b. Philadelphia 1739; d. Morrisville, Pa., 23 Jan. 1813. He was orphaned at the age of one year, received an education at the College of Phila delphia (now University of Pennsylvania), entered mercantile life when a lad and ac quired a competence. He was prominent in public affairs prior to the Revolution, and in 1772 was appointed by Governor Penn to the position of justice of the Court of General Ses sions and of the County Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. In 1775 he became one of the first Continental treasurers. He was chosen in 1776 to succeed a member of the Con tinental Congress who had refused to sign the Declaration of Independence, to which he promptly affixed his signature, the 38th after John Hancock's. He was active in the patriot cause during the Revolution, served under Cadwalder in the battle of Princeton and was a member of the convention that framed the Federal constitution. In 1788 he was elected a member of the first Congress under that in strument. In 1778, he was one of the special commissioners sent by Congress to treat with the Indians at Fort Pitt. In 1790 he declined
a re-election, and in the succeeding year was appointed collector of the excise duties on spirits, the collection of which in Pennsylvania led to the whisky riots. Clymer acted firmly, yet temperately in the till finding the office distasteful, he resigned it, and was ap pointed, with Pickens and Hawkins, to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees and Creeks in Georgia. After this he retired from public life, but devoted much of his time to study. He became president of the Philadel phia Bank and the Academy of Fine Arts. No man was more averse than he to the assump tions of aristocracy, to the excellencies, honor ables and esquires, who, he said, abounded more in the United States than in any other country in the world. He seldom spoke in pub lic, but when he did his ideas were expressed in language keen, pithy and laconic. Consult Dickenson in the Magazine of American His tory (Vol. V, New York MO).