William Pierce

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William Leigh Pierce (* 1740 in the province of Georgia , †  December 10, 1789 in Savannah , Georgia ) was an American politician . In 1787 he was a delegate for Georgia to the Continental Congress .

Career

The sources on William Pierce are relatively poor and contradictory. According to his congressional biography he was born in Georgia in 1740, according to other sources in York County , Virginia around 1753 . Nothing is known about his youth. He was in commerce in Savannah. In the 1770s he joined the revolutionary movement. During the War of Independence he served in the Continental Army . He was a member of General Nathanael Greene's staff . After the war, he returned to trading in Savannah. In 1786 he sat in the Georgia House of Representatives and in 1787 he represented his state at the Continental Congress. He was also a delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention to draft the United States Constitution . He took an active part in the debates, but left the Convention prematurely for business reasons and was therefore not a signatory to the constitution. However, he worked for the adoption of this document. At the constitutional convention he wrote a kind of diary in which he not only recorded the course of the meetings, but also made short biographical notes about the other participants on paper. These records are important for historical research to this day.

Pierce was a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati and a curator of the Chatham County Academy . He died in Savannah on September 10, 1789.

Web links

  • William Pierce in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
personal data
SURNAME Pierce, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pierce, William Leigh (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1740
PLACE OF BIRTH Georgia Province
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1789
Place of death Savanah , Georgia