Hugh Williamson (81)

Elected to the revived American Philosophical Society.

Hugh Williamson (5 December 1735–22 May 1819) was an educator, merchant, physician, statesman, and scientist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Williamson attended APS member Francis Alison’s New London Academy and the College of Philadelphia. He initially pursued a divinity degree but changed course to study medicine, first attending Edinburgh University before graduating from the University of Utrecht in 1766. The following year he returned to Philadelphia where he began his own medical practice. He was an active member of the APS and published in the Society’s Transactions; his essays included writings on the Transit of Venus and a pioneering study of climate change in the mid-Atlantic. Ever energetic, Williamson then entered provincial politics, advocating for the proprietary cause. While waiting to depart from Boston harbor on a fundraising mission to London for Alison’s academy in 1773, Williamson had the unexpected opportunity to witness the Boston Tea Party. Upon his arrival in London this experience provided an entrée into imperial affairs when he was summoned to inform the Privy Council about the event and about the general mood in the colonies. His return voyage to Philadelphia in 1777 met with disappointment when he failed to find the medical position he desired within the Continental Army. Its loss proved North Carolina’s gain; Williamson served as the physician-general and surgeon general of North Carolina’s troops where his attention to camp living conditions, including sanitation and inoculations, significantly decreased camp death rates. Following the war his work as a public official intensified. He was elected to the North Carolina State Assembly in 1782, to the Continental Congress, and eventually to the House of Representatives of the first federal Congress. (PI, DNB, ANB)