Jared
Ingersoll, signer of the Constitution
of the United States , was the great grandson of
John
Ingersoll and Mary Hunt of Westfield Massachusetts.
JARED INGERSOLL of Pennsylvania
Jared Ingersoll, was the great-grandson of John 1615 (Jared,Jared,Jonathan,John). The son of Jared Ingersoll and Hannah ( Whiting Ingersoll ). The elder Jared Ingersoll was a distinguished lawyer in colonial Connecticut and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. But he fell from popular favor in 1765 when he accepted a commision as a British tax collector under the Stamp act and was forced to resign the office by an armed mob of five hundred Sons of Liberty. In 1771, the British appointed the elder Ingersoll as a judge of the court of the vice admiralty in Philadelphia, where he lived until the patriots forced him to return to Connecticut because of his Loyalist sympathies during the Revolutionary War.The younger Jared Ingersoll:
1749 (Oct.27) Born in New Haven Connecticut
1766 Graduated from Yale College
1774-1778 Studied in Europe
1779 Admitted to the bar in Philadelphia
1780-1781 Deligate to the Continental Congress from Pennsylivania
1787 Member of Pennsylvania delegation to the
Constitutional Convention; signed the Constitution of the United States
1790-1799 Attorney General of Pennsylvania
1798-1801 City solicitor of Philadelphia
1800-1801 U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania.
1811-1817 Attorney general of Pennsylvania
1812 Unsuccessfully ran for Vice President of the United States on the Federalist ticket
1821-1822 Judge of district court of Philadelphia.
1822 (Oct.31) Died in Philadelphia
He was reared a Presbyterian, and recieved a good education in Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College in 1766 at the age of sixteen. With the approach of the Revolutionary War, his father decided to send him to Europe to study law. The young man arrived in London in 1774 and studied at the Middle Temple for about two years. Then to Paris for two more years. While in Europe, he became an ardent supporter of the American patriotic cause. At the age of 29, he returned to America in 1778, and in Jan.,1779, was admitted to the bar to practice law in Philadelphia. Influencial friends of his father helped build him a practice, but his natural abilities also enhanced his reputation as he won notice as a trial lawyer who could sway juries facility.
DISTINGUISHED FOP HIS CONSERVITISM
Ingersoll entered politics in 1780 when he was elected to the Pennsylvania legislature as a member of the state's deligation to the Continental Congress, and he was a member that body when the Articles of Confederation went into effect in 1781. Throughout his political career he was distinguished for his conservatism.
At the age of 32 he married Elizabeth Pettit. They had four children, all sons, who grew up with such playmates and companions as Philip Hamilton, the son of Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington Parke Curtis, the adopted grandson of George Washington. The most distinguished of these sons was Charles Jared Ingersoll, who served in the Congress from 1813 to 1815 as a Democratic-Republican and from 1841 to 1849 as a Democrat. In 1787,
Jared Ingersoll won election by the state legislature as one of the deputies to the Constitutional Convention. He apparently took little part in the debates concerning the structure of the new government. However , on the last day of the meeting, Sept. 17, 1787, James Madison's journal records that Ingersoll rose to support Benjamin Franklin's motion that the delegates sign the constitution. Madison reported "Mr. Ingersoll did not concider the signing either as a mere attestation of the fact, or as pledging the signers to support the Constitation at all events; but as a recommendation of what all things concidered, was the most equitable"AN OFFICE-HOLDER UNDER THE FEDERLISTS
As long as the Federalists were in power in Pennsylvania Ingersoll held important positions. From 1790 to 1799, he was attorney general of Pennsylvania under the administration of Governor Thomas Mifflin, a fellow-signer of the constitution. Ingersoll also served as city solicitor of Philadelphia from 1798 to 1801. In the last hours of President John Adams's Federalist administration, Ingersoll was appointed as a U.S. circuit court judge for eastern Pennsylvania, one of the "midnight judges"; but he refused the commision.
With the coming to power of Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, Ingersoll retired to private law practice for about ten years. Howerer , he continued as a leader of the Federalist Party in Pennsylvania. In 1812, the Federalists chose him as the Vice Presidential running mate of Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York in the Presidential election, but he and Clinton were defeated by the Democratic-Republican ticket of President James Madison and Elbrige Gerry
Ingersoll again served as attorney general of Pennsylvania, from 1811 to 1817, and
at the age of 72 he took his last public office, as presiding judge of the district court of Philadelphia from 1821 to 1822. Just three days after his 73rd birthday, he died in Philadelphia, Oct.31,1822. Like several other signers of the Constitution, he died a poor man because of speculation in western land.
The information on this page was extracted from a book at the public library in Melbourne, Florida, in
the "old Eau Gallie" section of the city.
The name of the book was "The Signers of the Constitution". I can not remember who the
publisher was.
Other websites about Jared
National Archives and Records Administration Constitution of the United States of America National Archives and Records Administration Biography of Jared Ingersoll