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Philip Livingston

PHILIP LIVINGSTON was born at Albany, on the 15th of January, 1716. He was the fourth son of Gilbert Livingston, and his ancestors were highly respectable, holding a distinguished rank in New York, and possessing a beautiful tract of land on the banks of the Hudson. This tract, since known at the Manor of Livingston, has belonged to the family from that time to the present. Philip Livingston received his education at Yale College, where he was graduated in 1737. He soon after engaged extensively in commerce in the city of New York, and was very successful in his transactions. In 1754, he was elected an alderman, and continued in the office for nine successive years. In 1759, he was returned a member to the General Assembly of the colony, where his talents and influence were most usefully employed. His views were liberal and enlightened, and he did much to improve the commercial and agricultural facilities of the country.

Previous to the revolution, it was usual for the respective colonies to have an agent in England, to manage their individual concerns with the British government. This agent was appointed by the popular branch of the Assembly. In 1770, the agent of the colony of New York dying, the celebrated Edmund Burke was chosen in his stead, and received for the office a salary of five hundred pounds. Between this gentleman and a committee of the Colonial Assembly, a correspondence was maintained; and upon their representations the agent depended for a knowledge of the state of the colony. Of this committee, Mr. Livingston was a member. From his communications and those of his colleagues, Mr. Burke doubtless obtained that information of the state of the colonies, which he sometimes brought forward to the perfect surprise of the House of Commons, and upon which he often founded arguments, and proposed measures, which were not to be resisted.

Mr. Livingston regarded with patriotic indignation, the measures by which the British ministry thought to humble the spirit of the colonies. His avowed sentiments, and the prominent part he had always taken in favor of the right of the colonies, caused him to be elected, in 1774, a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was also a member of the distinguished Congress of 1776, and was among those whose names are enduringly recorded on the great charter of their country's freedom and national existence. He was re-elected to the same assembly the following year, and was also chosen a Senator to the State Legislature, after the adoption of a new Constitution. He again took his seat in Congress, in May, 1778, but his health was shockingly impaired, and such was the nature of his disease, which was a dropsy in the chest, that no rational prospect existed of his recovery. Before his departure from Albany, he took a final farewell of his family and friends, and expressed his conviction that he should not live to see them again. His anticipations proved true. From the period of his return to Congress, his decline was rapid; and he closed his valuable life on the 12th of June, 1778. Suitable demonstrations of respect to his memory were paid by Congress; and his funeral was publicly attended.

Mr. Livingston married the daughter of Colonel Dirck Ten Broeck, by whom he had several children. His family has furnished many distinguished characters. Mr. Livingston was amiable in his disposition, and a firm be liever in the great truths of Christianity. He died respected and esteemed by all who knew him.