George Ross

George Ross was born in 1730 in New Castle, Delaware, studied law, and built a practice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He served in the colonial assembly, at first as a moderate, and became a judge and an officer of the militia. In 1776 he was added to the Pennsylvania delegation in the Continental Congress after the vote on independence, and he signed the engrossed Declaration. He later sat as a judge of the Pennsylvania admiralty court, which heard cases involving captured ships. Ross died in 1779, still in mid-career. Later popular stories sometimes connect him to the flag-making legend of Betsy Ross, whose late husband was his nephew; that flag story is not a reliable part of the historical record and is not used here. What can be said with confidence is that Ross accepted a seat in Congress at a dangerous moment and died before the war was won.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · John Morton · George Clymer · James Smith of Pennsylvania · George Taylor