Alexander Graydon

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Alexander Graydon (born April 10, 1752 in Bristol , † May 2, 1818 in Philadelphia ) was an American lawyer , writer and military man .

Life

Alexander Graydon was born in 1752 in Bristol, Pennsylvania , the son of an Irish immigrant of the same name and his second wife Rachel Marks . From 1760 to 1766 he attended the Academy of Philadelphia , then he began to devote himself to law . In 1776 Graydon enlisted as a captain in the Continental Army to serve in the American War of Independence . During the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, he fell into British captivity , from which he was released in April 1778 .

After the war, he held the post of prothonotary in Dauphin County . He also took part in the Pennsylvania Ratification Assembly and served as an elector in the 1789 presidential election . In 1799 he was released from the office of prothonotary , whereupon he settled for retirement on a farm near Harrisburg . In the years that followed, Graydon wrote regularly for The Port Folio magazine and for newspapers such as the Gazette of the United States . In 1811 he published under the title Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania, within the Last Sixty Years; with Occasional Remarks upon the General Occurrences, Character and Spirit of that Eventful Period his memoirs anonymously , in which he describes both his personal past and the epoch he has experienced.

Graydon lived in two childless marriages. He died in 1818.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Francis S. Drake: Dictionary of American Biography . James R. Osgood and Company, Boston 1874, p. 377 (English, preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Stephen Carl Arch: Writing a Federalist Self: Alexander Graydon's Memoirs of a Life . In: The William and Mary Quarterly . tape 52 , no. 3 . Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, July 1995, pp. 415-432 , doi : 10.2307 / 2947293 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Alexander Graydon. In: Penn People. University Archives and Records Center, accessed June 14, 2020 (American English).
personal data
SURNAME Graydon, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, writer, and military officer
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1752
PLACE OF BIRTH Bristol
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1818
Place of death Philadelphia