STORIES OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIERS

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Oliver Ellsworth

Ellsworth Oliver was born at Windsor, Connecticut on April 29, 1745. He graduated at Princeton College, New Jersey and became an eminent member of the Bar. He was a firm advocate of chartered rights and a stern opposer of British wrongs. He used his noblest exertions to induce the people to strike for liberty. In 1777, he was elected to the Continental Congress. He was a delegate of the Convention that framed the Federal Constitution. In 1789 he was elected to the U. S. Senate. In 1796, appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and in 1799, an Envoy Extraordinary to France. Owing to ill health he resigned his seat at the head of the Supreme Bench in 1800. Several high offices were subsequently tendered to him which he respectfully declined. His whole life was chastened with a republican simplicity and primitive purity seldom found among those in high life at the present ominous era. Judge Ellsworth died on November 26, 1807.

Source: The Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution by L. Carroll Judson