Philip Livingston
1716–1778 · New York merchant and philanthropist who signed the Declaration and died the next year while Congress sat at York, Pennsylvania.
Philip Livingston was born in 1716 in Albany, New York, into a prominent landed family, graduated from Yale, and became a wealthy merchant in New York City. He helped found the college that became Columbia, supported a public hospital and the city's chamber of commerce, and entered politics as the imperial crisis grew. He sat in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and continued to serve as the war began to go badly in the middle states. In 1778 Congress was meeting at York, Pennsylvania, after leaving Philadelphia. Livingston, already in poor health, died there on 12 June 1778, one of the few signers who did not live to see the end of the war. His family's property in New York suffered during the British occupation of the city.
See also: Signers of the Declaration · William Floyd · Francis Lewis · Lewis Morris
Key dates
- 1716 Born in Albany, New York
- 1774 Sits in the First Continental Congress
- 1776 Signs the Declaration of Independence
- 1778 Dies at York, Pennsylvania, while serving in Congress
Read about them
Grades 6–8
- The Founding Documents · In the library
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