| | 1 | Name: | Thomas Coombe | | | Year Elected: | 1773 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 10/21/1747 | | | Death Date: | 8/15/1822 | | | | | | |
Thomas Coombe, Jr. (21 October 1747–15 August 1822) was an Anglican priest, a poet, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1773. The son of APS Member Thomas Coombe, Sr., Coombe, Jr. was born in Philadelphia. He attended the College of Philadelphia and was the valedictorian of his graduating class. As a student, he displayed writerly promise which he developed throughout his life; as a clergyman, his sermons were recognized for their craft and persuasiveness. In 1768, Coombe, Jr. traveled to London, seeking the priesthood. During this visit, he stayed at the home of family friend Benjamin Franklin. Coombe, Jr. was ordained in 1771 and returned to Philadelphia to continue his ministry the following year. He came to be known as a moving and memorable preacher, and several of his sermons were published and distributed throughout the colonies. In one popular 1775 sermon, he expressed support for the colonial cause; however, at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Coombe refused to break his ordination vows of fidelity to the British government by pronouncing his support of the Declaration of Independence. He was arrested for this refusal in 1777 and managed to avoid imprisonment in Virginia by claiming he was in poor health. When the British army arrived in the colonies, Coombe, Jr. was given permission to sail for England, where he lived out the rest of his life. While living abroad, he continued his ministry as a priest and chaplain, he published a book of poetry, and he continued his education, obtaining a Doctor of Divinity degree from Trinity College in 1781. Coombe, Jr. was married twice and, upon his death in 1822, left his wife and his four surviving children a sizable fortune. (DNB) | |
| 2 | Name: | Andrew Oliver | | | Year Elected: | 1773 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 11/13/1731 | | | Death Date: | 12/6/1799 | | | | | | |
Andrew Oliver (13 November 1731–6 December 1799) was a jurist, scientist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1773. Born in Boston to a politically connected family, he attended Harvard college, graduating in 1749 before continuing his studies and earning master's degrees at Yale (1751) and Harvard (1752). After marrying, Oliver relocated to his wife’s hometown of Salem. He held minor public offices before becoming a county judge in 1761 and a representative of Salem to the Massachusetts General Court the following year. He had a complicated relationship with the growing rebel movement, oftentimes voting in favor of reductions in taxes and duties and yet was a member of a loyalist family and occupied a Tory position for a time (before realizing it made him a target and resigning). He joined a local militia in an attempt to regain approval, but upon asking to be excused from a meeting due to unfavorable weather, his constituents were left unsatisfied. When the war broke out, his loyalist family went into hiding while he remained in Salem, not for any political reason, but rather to continue his scientific inquiries into the nature of air. Most notably, Oliver proposed that comet tails were made up of air, and that life could exist in such air. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin and other contemporaries, he also asserted that electricity permeates air and studied its role in causing thunderstorms. Along with John Adams, he helped found the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Massachusetts. In the final years of his life, Oliver’s scientific activity mostly ceased due to his gout and declining finances and he died in such a state, at home in Salem. (ANB) | |
| 3 | Name: | James Tilton | | | Year Elected: | 1773 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 6/1/1745 | | | Death Date: | 5/14/1822 | | | | | | |
James Tilton (1 June 1745–14 May 1822) was a physician, politician, agriculturalist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1773. Born the son of a farmer in Kent Country, Delaware, Tilton was educated by a Presbyterian reverend before studying medicine under a local physician. He graduated from the College of Philadelphia in 1768, earned his M.D. in 1771 and opened a practice in Dover, Delaware the following year. When the Revolutionary War broke out he joined the militia, and took the post of regimental surgeon and later hospital surgeon. The state of military hospitals shocked Tilton and he responded by designing a hospital hut that emphasized sanitation and the separation of the infected from the injured. Tilton resumed his medical practice after the war while also turning his attention to politics, He began by joining the Continental Congress in 1783 and 1784 and the following year served in the upper house of the Delaware legislature. Perhaps seeking greener pastures, Tilton moved to a farm near Wilmington in 1790. Throughout his life he wrote about agriculture all while remaining active in the medical community: he was president of the Medical Society of Delaware (1789) and an associate of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1790). In 1813 President James Madison appointed Tilton Surgeon General of the U.S., and he is considered the founder of the army’s medical department. He died on his farm near Wilmington. (ANB) | |
| 4 | Name: | Nicholas Way | | | Year Elected: | 1773 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
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