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A Portrait of the First Continental Congress W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2009 Fifty gentlemen total strangers: A portrait of the First Continental Congress Karen Northrop Barzilay College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Barzilay, Karen Northrop, "Fifty gentlemen total strangers: A portrait of the First Continental Congress" (2009). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623537. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-61q6-k890 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Fifty Gentlemen Total Strangers: A Portrait of the First Continental Congress Karen Northrop Barzilay Needham, Massachusetts Master of Arts, College of William and Mary, 1998 Bachelor of Arts, Skidmore College, 1996 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies Program The College of William and Mary January 2009 © 2009 Karen Northrop Barzilay APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ~ilayd Approved by the Committee, October, 2008 Commd ee Chair Professor Robert A Gross, History and American Studies University of Connecticut Professor Ronald Hoffman, History Director, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture The College of William and Mary Associate Professor Karin Wuff, History and encan Studres The College of William and Mary ABSTRACT PAGE When news of the Coercive Acts reached the mainland colonies ofBritish North America in May 177 4, there was no such thing as a Continental Congress. Provincial leaders, agreeing that an intercolonial gathering was necessary to protest recent Parliamentary measures, anticipated only a congress-an isolated diplomatic convention in the tradition of the Stamp Act Congress and the Albany Congress. Although the fifty-six colonial deputies assembling in Philadelphia knew that they attended an historic meeting, none of them foresaw that this conference would tum out to be the genesis of the United States government. Recasting the First Continental Congress as an essentially diplomatic encounter, this dissertation asks how members of twelve independent delegations, products of a dozen disparate and distrustful American provinces, defied precedent to construct an imperfect yet permanent intercolonial coalition. "Fifty Gentlemen Total Strangers" argues that the congressional deputies' unified public support for the Suffolk Resolves and revolutionary Continental Association, hardly preordained, was heavily dependent on the identities and actions of the men who were present and on the character of their interactions with one another. Using biographical information, letters, and portraits made prior to 1774, the dissertation develops a prosopography of the congressional delegates that encompasses age, family, religious affiliation, education, professional background, political involvement, and previous associations. What emerges is a collective profile of leaders with similar values, sensibilities, and life experiences. Dominating the Congress were cosmopolitan men who had come of age in the 1730s and 1740s-established members of the popularly-elected political elite shaped by both the persistent localism of their respective provinces and the homogenizing and Anglicizing forces of the Consumer Revolution. Turning to the Congress itself, the dissertation focuses especially on ostensibly non-political encounters and venues, carefully examining the deputies' out-of­ doors experiences as crucial political and diplomatic work took place outside of Carpenters' Hall. Making formal visits to one another's lodgings, attending dinner parties at the homes of local gentlemen, and gossiping in quiet private conversations, the delegates continually manipulated mutually understood standards of gentility, speech, and sensibility to advance their political interests. Building on relationships formed in person or through correspondence prior to 1774, a crucial nucleus ofresistance leaders-including Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, Christopher Gadsden, and Thomas Mifflin-were able to fashion a potent and organized faction while in Philadelphia that successfully shaped the direction of the meeting, pushing the Congress to take irrevocable steps towards revolution. For Ilan 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments 111 List of Tables IV List ofFigures v Introduction 2 Chapter I. "An Assembly As Never Before Came Together": 29 Identifying the Delegates Chapter II. "The Living Image": 89 Portraits of a Political Body Chapter III. "Out-Of-Doors": 157 Social Experiences and Personal Encounters in Philadelphia Chapter IV. "Shewing Their Parts and Powers": 215 The Role of Oratory and Correspondence Chapter V. "I Dissented, But Entered Unanimously": 254 Inside Carpenters' Hall Epilogue 309 Appendix 321 Bibliography 326 Vita 343 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My dissertation has benefited from the ideas and advice of an excellent committee. I would like to thank my advisor, Robert Gross, for his thoughtful and sometimes astonishingly prompt responses to my work. I have long admired how Bob is able to beautifully summarize and then tactfully critique anything he reads-a skill especially appreciated in an advisor. I have profited from his helpful suggestions, careful editing, and general brainpower. I am indebted to my second reader, Ron Hoffman, for his frank and useful feedback. It was his challenging seminar on the American Revolution that first sparked my interest in eighteenth­ century politics. Ron wields a felt-tip pen with abandon, to good effect, and he inspires me with his mastery of the scholarship on eighteenth-century America. My other readers, Fredrika Teute and Karin Wulf, also provided invaluable suggestions and criticisms. I would like to extend a general thanks to the people at various libraries and historical societies who helped me as I researched and wrote my dissertation-as well as to the editors of the documentary editions I used. On a personal as well as a professional level, my smart and good-humored colleagues at The Adams Papers and the Massachusetts Historical Society have been a great support to me. Finally, I embrace this opportunity to thank my community of family and friends, especially my brother, Mark Northrop, and fellow William and Mary graduate students Gretchen Schoel, Amy Howard, Sharon Sauder Muhlfeld, and Lauri Coleman. My parents, Dorothy and Ted Northrop, are dear, strong, and generous people who have been my greatest cheerleaders over the years. My daughter, Hazel-who arrived on the scene in between drafts-regularly inspires me with her insatiable curiosity and unguarded enthusiasm for life. My husband, Ilan, is unfailingly kind and accommodating, and his good-natured irreverence and keen wit have kept me sane during this long process. I dedicate this dissertation to him, with deep appreciation and love. 111 LIST OF TABLES Page 1 Age of Members ofRepresentative Bodies 36 2 Age of Delegates to General Congress, 1774 and 37 Members ofHouse ofCommons, 1774 3 Birth Years ofDelegates 38 4 Religion of Delegates 44 5 Education of Delegates 49 6 Occupation of Delegates 52 IV LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. William Johnston, Eliphalet Dyer, ca. 1770, 64 Connecticut Historical Society 2. James Smither, Engraving of John Dickinson, 1768, 65 Library Company of Philadelphia 3. Charles Willson Peale, Samuel Chase, ca. 1773, 66 Maryland Historical Society 4. "Standing," from The Rudiments of Genteel Behavior (1737) 98 5. Charles Willson Peale, William Paca, 1772, 100 Peabody Institute ofBaltimore, Maryland 6. Charles Willson Peale, George Washington, 1772, 101 Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia 7. "A Countenance in an Easy Composure," from 104 Human Physiognomy Explain 'd (1747) 8. James Caldwell after a painting by John Collet, 108 "The Englishman in Paris," 1770, Colonial Williamsburg Collection 9. John Hesselius, Thomas Johnson, ca. 1765, 111 Maryland Historical Society 10. John Singleton Copley, Samuel Adams, ca. 1772, 112 Museum ofFine Arts, Boston 11. Charles Willson Peale, Thomas Johnson and Family, 1772, 114 C. Burr Artz Library, Frederick, MD 12. Men's banyans and caps, Colonial Williamsburg Collection, 116 from Linda Baumgarten, What Clothes Reveal (Williamsburg, 2002) 13. Benjamin Blyth, John Adams, 1764, Massachusetts Historical Society 124 v Figure Page 14. John Singleton Copley, John Hancock, 1765, 127 Museum ofFine Arts, Boston, Deposited by City ofBoston 15. Paul Revere, Engraving of Samuel Adams, 1774, 131 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution 16. Benjamin West, George Ross, c. 1755, Franklin and Marshall College, 134 Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17. Benjamin West, Thomas Mifflin, c. 1759, 135 Historical Society of Pennsylvania 18. John Singleton Copley, Thomas and Sarah Mifflin, 1773, 139 Philadelphia Museum of Art 19. Charles Willson Peale, John Dickinson, 1770, 144 Historical Society of Pennsylvania 20. Charles Willson Peale, Mary and Sally Dickinson, 1773, 147 Historical Society of Pennsylvania 21. Paul Revere, Engraving
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