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John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794) was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States.
- American/Scottish
- Samuel Stanhope Smith
- Joseph Yannielli
- He baptized a young man who was enslaved in Scotland. Before immigrating to America, Witherspoon baptized James Montgomery, who was born in Virginia and sold to a merchant located near Glasgow, Scotland, where Witherspoon was a minister.
- He personally tutored two African men. Enslaved as children in what is now Ghana, Bristol Yamma and John Quamino endured the horrors of the Middle Passage before settling in Newport, Rhode Island.
- He condemned the British for offering freedom to enslaved Africans. Witherspoon preached and argued that American Colonists would become slaves to Britain if they did not break free from British rule.
- Witherspoon’s family profited from slave labor. While the logic of the American Revolution pushed some patriots, such as Princeton graduate Benjamin Rush, to embrace anti-slavery activism, Witherspoon took a different path.
John Knox Witherspoon (1723-1794)—clergyman, educator, and founding father—served as Princeton’s sixth president from 1768 until his death in 1794. Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Witherspoon was a prominent 18th-century intellectual associated with the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment.
May 17, 2018 · John Witherspoon was an American Founding Father, a noted clergyman, and an educator. He played an influential role in his home country of Scotland and in his adopted country, the United States. Witherspoon was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Jeffry Morrison’s brief, excellent new book, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic, both testifies to and partly redresses the neglect Witherspoon has suffered. Modern scholars, Morrison points out, “have not made much out of Witherspoon one way or another.”
- Roger Kimball
John Witherspoon (February 5, 1723 – November 15, 1794) was a Scottish-American Presbyterian minister, educator, farmer, slaveholder, and a Founding Father of the United States.
He was a father figure to America’s Founders. A renowned theologian from Scotland, John Witherspoon educated many young men who became prominent leaders of the Founding generation. He went on to embrace the revolutionary cause.
