Biography

04/08/1752 - 02/07/1804

William Bingham, Jr. (Federalist1) Delaware, Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Counties 1793-1795

Early Life: 

William Bingham, Jr., born April 8, 1752, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, British Colonial America; son of William Sr. and Molly Stamper Bingham; College of Philadelphia (now, University of Pennsylvania), (A.B.), 1768, College of Philadelphia, (A.M.), 1771; apprentice under Philadelphia merchant Thomas Warton; agent, secretary, Committee of Secret Correspondence of the Second Continental Congress, Martinique, consul, Saint Pierre, West Indies 1770-1780; married, Anne Willing, 1780, children, William, Ann Baring, Maria Matilda Baring; delegate, Continental Congress 1786-1788; elected, Federalist, Pennsylvania State House of Representatives 1790-1792, elected, Speaker, 1791; president, chief financial officer, Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company, 1791; unsuccessful campaign, Federalist, United States House of Representatives, 1792; elected, Federalist, Pennsylvania State Senate, 1793-1795, elected, Senate Speaker 1794-1795; elected, Federalist, United States Senate, 1795-1801; not a candidate for reelection; President pro tempore of the Senate, 1799; withdrew from public life and engaged in the management of his extensive estates; moved, Bath, England, 1801; resided with his daughter until his death; died, February 7, 1804, Bath, Somerset, England; interment, Bath Abbey, Bath, Somerset, England.

Early Career:

Served the Continental Congress as a propagandist, spied on British movements, and facilitated the smuggling of weapons to the Revolutionaries back in the Colonies. Remained in Martinique until 1780, amassing a large fortune from intercepted British cargo.

Purchased of over four million acres of land (one-fourth from the Act of 1792); director, Bank of Philadelphia (later chartered, Bank of North America); was United States Treasurer Alexander Hamilton’s chief economic advisor; acquired substantial tracts of land, New York, Maine, and the northern frontier of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Politics: 

Elected, Federalist, Pennsylvania State House of Representatives 1790-1791; elected, 37th Speaker of the House on December 8, 1790. First House Speaker, after the 1790 Constitutional Convention created a bicameral legislature, where both the House and Senate comprised the General Assembly. Re-elected, Speaker on December 7, 1791.

President, chief financial officer, Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company (the nation’s first major public highway), 1791. 

Elected, Federalist, Pennsylvania State Senate, special election, 1st district, Delaware, Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Counties, 1793-1795; election held to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Samuel Powell; Speaker, Pennsylvania Senate, 1794-1795.

Pennsylvania Speaker of House of Representatives Biography:

William Bingham - PA House of Representatives - PA House of Representatives (state.pa.us) 

Continued Government Service/National Politics:

Agent, secretary, Committee of Secret Correspondence of the Second Continental Congress, Martinique; consul, Saint Pierre, West Indies 1780-1780.

Delegate, Continental Congress 1786-1788.

Unsuccessful campaign, Federalist, United States House of Representatives, 1792.

Elected, Federalist, United States Senate, 1795-1801; not a candidate for reelection; President pro tempore of the Senate, Fourth Congress, 1799

Legacy:

City of Binghamton, Broome County, New York bears reference to the senator’s surname.

Escorted President-elect George Washington through Pennsylvania with his troop on his April 1789 journey from Valley Forge to New York City to assume the presidency. 

On March 4, 1797, with the start of the Fifth Congress he administered the oath of office to Vice President Thomas Jefferson

Cited:

Cox, Harold. "Senate Members B". Wilkes University Election Statistics Project. Wilkes University.

Robert C. Alberts, The Golden Voyage: The life and Times of William Bingham, 1752-1804 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), page 11. 

Frank Willing Leach, North American (Philadelphia), June 28, 1908. 

Dictionary of American Biography, volume 2, edition Allen Johnson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons for the American Council of Learned Societies, 1929), pages 273-278.

William Bingham (upenn.edu)

William Bingham (1752-1804) | Dickinson College

Microsoft Word - bingham finding aid.doc (hsp.org)

A New Nation Votes (tufts.edu)

The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Bingham