2. He quickly rose to prominence after being elected to
represent Cumberland County in the Provincial
Conventions of 1774 and 1775.
A member of the elite club of six Founding Fathers who
signed both the Declaration of Independence and the
United States Constitution
He wrote the legal argument for Superintendent of Finance
Robert Morris’s proposed Bank of North America and
presented it to the Continental Congress.
Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1786
He was appointed by President George Washington as an
associate justice of the first United States Supreme Court in
1789.
The first professor of law at the College of Philadelphia
(later known as the University of Pennsylvania) in 1790
3.
4.
5. One cool day in October of 1906 during a speech
dedicating the new state capital building in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, President Theodore
Roosevelt roared the name of James Wilson. Over 100
years earlier, in 1798 Wilson had died near a farm in
Edenton, North Carolina, where he had gone to escape
a land speculation scandal that had erupted in
Philadelphia.
6. In fact, that plan came to fruition when the substantial marble memorial tablet
was set in place over the new gravesite of James Wilson at Christ Church in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the ceremonial proceedings of November 22,
1906. Since then, millions of visitors to Christ Church have passed his gravesite
each year and read the inscription set there for all posterity.
7. Even to this day, James Wilson, despite the help and hype of one of the United
States’ greatest presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, is still virtually unknown.
Maybe it was the land speculation scandal at the end of his life that marred his
legacy. But why, in particular, did it affect him? Many of the Founding Fathers
were involved in land speculation, including Washington, Hamilton, and
Franklin.
The difference was that James Wilson, like fellow Founding Father and
financier Robert Morris, took it to the extreme. Wilson was unable to control
his addiction and went beyond reason when land ownership became an
obsession with him, and he made poor judgments in investments. Land
ownership became a game to him, and the contest was who was going to die
with the most land. Greed overwhelmed him, and it took everything he
possessed. Both James Wilson and Robert Morris ended up in debtors prison,
nearly penniless. They both paid the price for excessive land speculation: it
damaged their reputations, which lost them the respect of the nation both
during their lifetimes and in the years that followed, transforming them into
the forgotten Founding Fathers.
8. The circumstances surrounding Wilson’s death also raise
questions. Did he run to far away North Carolina to escape
the scandal, or did he have a more permanent solution to
his financial complications in mind? His second wife was
still in her 20s when he was almost 56. Not a soul in
Edenton except a handful of acquaintances could identify
him. Why did his family in Philadelphia not ask to have his
body returned for a funeral in Pennsylvania or try to
retrieve it in later years? Why did his young widow show up
in Philadelphia with an unknown stranger as her new
husband just a few months after Wilson’s “death” and
announce that they would be moving to Great Britain?
9. “In the United States, there is an immense Quantity of Land, rich, well-situated,
and in a salubrious Climate. This Land lies useless and unimproved from the Want
of Labour and Capital and Stock. In Europe there is an Abundance of Labour and
Capital and Stock; but rich and well-situated land cannot be obtained, unless at a
very high Price. A Plan by which the surplus Labor and Stock and Capital of Europe
would be employed on the unimproved Lands of the United States, must be
eminently advantageous to both.” James Wilson
The problem developed when large purchases of land were made by
Americans on credit and the steady stream of land-purchasing
immigrants suddenly decreased because of the demand for men to
fight the European wars. The European men were now being
conscripted to serve in the armies of Europe, making them unable to
travel to and buy land in America. This created a cash flow problem for
the speculators because the downturn in prospective land purchasers
was not conducive to their growth plan.
The recession of 1796-97 only added to the problem of the land
speculators’ access to credit despite their mounting debt.
10. Continental Congress had experienced a financial crisis from the very beginning,
which resulted in a lack of funds available to pay for the Revolutionary War.
However, the Continental Congress did come up with creative ideas to pay the
Continental Army, to entice enlistment, and to prevent desertions and resignations.
Congress authorized bounty-land warrants for military service in the Revolutionary
War under the Acts of 1788, 1803, and 1806.
The government had plenty of land and very little cash from the beginning of the
Revolutionary War to the end of the century. The colonies, through Great Brittan,
had acquired western land from the defeated French in the Seven Years War; the
United States, through the Treaty of Paris 1783, had acquired the land east of the
Mississippi River to the Appalachians or the previous western boundary of the
original colonies north to Canada.
The Treaty of Paris more that doubled the size of the original territory of the colonies. Most of
the land acquired in the Seven Years War was still state land, and most of the states ceded their
western lands to the federal government after the ratification of the Constitution in 1788.
11. The Great Yazoo Land Fraud
Georgia attempted to sell some of their western land to the United
States for $172,428, but Congress responded with the condition of “all
or nothing.”
Out-of-state land speculators formed three separate companies: The
South Carolina Yazoo Land Company, Tennessee Land Company, and
Virginia Yazoo Land Company, in order to buy and sell this land for a
quick profit.
In response, the Georgia Yazoo Company was formed to keep the land
within the state.
12. From here it was all downhill for Wilson. Creditors and
allegations followed him everywhere, and there was talk of
his impeachment from the Supreme Court. Wilson fled to
New Jersey, but in 1797 the authorities caught up with him
and had him imprisoned in Burlington, New Jersey. His
son Bird Wilson somehow found enough money to clear
Wilson for bail, and Wilson fled south. He still owed Pierce
Butler $197,000, and Butler’s agents caught up with him
and had him jailed once more in 1798. Again, Wilson’s son
bailed him out; but in July 1798, Wilson caught malaria in
Edenton. After his young wife joined him, he was declared
dead on August 21, 1798.
13. NAME ON DEED
John Brown
Charles Biddle
Hugh Brachinridge
Alexander Addison
Samuel Biard
Jacob Barr
Peter Baynton
Mark Biddle
Daniel Bradford
Rob Clark
Samuel Clark
John Clark
Daniel Claypoole
John Coxe
Daniel Cook
Anthony Crothers
Daniel Delany
John Dunlop
John Eddie
Anthony Harthman
George Hughes
Michael Hillegas
Henry Hillegas
John Heaton
Sam Hockley
Peter Muhlenberg
Henry Hockley
George Hughs
Charles Jolly
John Jolly
Isaac Jenkinson
Francis Johnston
Peter Kidd
Isaac Leit, Jr.
Jonathan Leit
John Lawrence
William Lawrence
William Lawrence
William Marshall
William MacPherson
William Meetkirk
William Mayberry
Hugh Means
William Nichols, Jr.
LISTED PENSION
S34100
S1752
S39322
R3137
W9276
W5309
W5309
S41807
R7649
LAND WARRANT
W9015, W9074
W8212
W12958
BLW26708-160-55
W3230
BLWT1495-850
BLWT1148-500
BLWT338-60-55
BLWT6-100-55
BLWT2336-100
BLWT2032-150
14. NAME ON DEED
William Nichols
Francis Nichols
John Purviance
Joseph Potts
David Potts
Thomas Potts
William Potts
Robert Purviance
Henry Purviance
Henry Pollard
Samuel Rutter
Thomas Ryerson
Hugh Rofs
John Redick
Andrew Swearingin
Joseph Swearingin
Samuel Shannon
Francis Swaine
John Taylor
James Wilson
Hugh Wilson
George Woods
Henry Woods
Henry Woods
Joseph Cowperthwait
Daniel Kerr
LISTED PENSION
S32459
S7326
S40275
S3709
S6043
R8642
W16722
S22547
W3140
S22604
LAND WARRANT
BLWT612-300
BLWT660-100
