William Paca

William Paca (portrait by Charles Willson Peale , 1772.)

The five-person drafting commission for the Declaration of Independence presented its work to Congress. Painting by John Trumbull . Paca is shown on the left as the second person standing from the left.

William Paca (born  October 31, 1740 in Abingdon , Province of Maryland , †  October 23, 1799 in Queen Anne's County , Maryland ) was an American lawyer and politician . He signed the United States' Declaration of Independence for Maryland , making him one of the American Founding Fathers .

Paca received home schooling, then attended Philadelphia College , graduating with a Masters at age 18. Paca studied law in a law firm in Annapolis and then trained at the Inner Temple in London. He returned home to practice as a lawyer in Annapolis from 1764.

Paca took part in political opposition to a royal governor's tax prior to the outbreak of the American independence movement and became a noted leader of the patriotic movement. He was elected to the Provincial Assembly of Maryland in 1771 and attended the First Continental Congress in 1774 . Paca was re-elected and remained a delegate until 1779 when he became Chief Justice of Maryland; in the meantime he sat from 1777 to 1779 in the Senate of Maryland . In 1782 he was elected governor of his state, where he prevailed against Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer . He became a judge in the Maryland Federal District Court in 1789 and remained in office until his death.

Paca died at his Wye Hall estate in Queen Anne's County and was buried in the family cemetery there. He was married to Mary Chew, the daughter of an important plantation owner, since May 26, 1763, with whom he had three children, only one of whom reached adulthood.

literature

• Albert Silverman: William Paca, Signer, Governor, Lawyer . In: Maryland Historical Magazine 37, 1942, pp. 1-25.
• Gregory A. Stiverson and Phoebe R. Jacobsen: William Paca: A Biography . Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore 1976.
• Gregory A. Stiverson: Maryland's Antifederalists and the Perfection of the US Constitution . In: Maryland Historical Magazine 83, 1988, pp. 18-35.

Web links

• William Paca in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• William Paca in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• William Paca on the National Governors Association (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Key to Declaration. Image mapping on americanrevolution.org (accessed November 24, 2014).