From: [email protected] Date: Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:10:35 PM US/Eastern To: [email protected] Subject: [PaOldC] Thomas MCKEAN biography The F&C version is better and there are numerous online bios of Gov. McKean (and a signer of the Declaration for Delaware), but Cyndie has published the bio of Thomas McKean from the Chester County Cyclopedia at http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/pa/chester/bios/mckean-t.txt I am not a descendant of Thomas McKean but he is a relation - his grandparents, William and Susannah McKean, were my 7th great-grandparents, and his other grandparents, Robert Finney and Dorothea French, were also my 7th great-grandparents. That and $3.95 will get me a grande at Starbucks but I've published an outline of the descendants of William and Susannah McKean at: http://www.GunboatEmpires.com/genealogy/McKean0000.htm John Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county", by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1893, page208. "HON. THOMAS McKEAN, LL. D., governor of Pennsylvania for three successive terms, and a signer of the immortal Declaration of Independence, was a son of William and Letitia (Finney) McKean, and was born in New London township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 19, 1734. He received his education at Rev. Francis Alison's academy, and then removed to New Castle, Delaware, where he practiced law and was variously employed in public positions until 1773. He then removed to Philadelphia, where he died June 24, 1817, aged eighty-three years. "Thomas McKean was a member of the Colonial Congress of 1765, and of the Continental Congress during its entire existence. In 1777 he was commissioned chief justice of Pennsylvania, although serving at that time as speaker of the assembly, president of the State of Delaware, and a member of Congress. In 1799, Mr. McKean was elected governor of Pennsylvania, and served as such until 1808. He wrote the first constitution of Delaware, and was a member of the convention that framed the Pennsylvania constitution of 1790. A distinguished patriot and an eminent jurist, it was his proud distinction to have solidified the Delaware delegation in favor of separation from England, and thus secured the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the unanimous act of the thirteen colonies."