Gleaned from thousands of Revolutionary-era letters, diaries, and newspapers, John P. Kaminski and Timothy D. Moore have compiled word portraits for all 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention. A few of the delegates had continental reputations. Most were prominent and well known within their home states. Some knew each other well because of their service in the army or in Congress, while others were just barely acquainted.
Taken from An Assembly of Demigods, these “word portraits” listed here focus on the character, personality traits, physical descriptions, and intellectual prowess of 17 delegates at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. They are both insightful and entertaining, revealing much that has been veiled by the fog of history.
Connecticut
- Oliver Ellsworth (pdf)
- William Samuel Johnson
- Roger Sherman (pdf)
Delaware
- Richard Bassett
- Gunning Bedford, Jr.
- Jacob Broom
- John Dickinson (pdf)
- George Read
Georgia
- Abraham Baldwin
- William Few
- William Houstoun (pdf)
- William Pierce
Maryland
- Daniel Carroll
- Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer
- Luther Martin (pdf)
- James McHenry (pdf)
- John Francis Mercer
Massachusetts
- Elbridge Gerry
- Nathaniel Gorham
- Rufus King (pdf)
- Caleb Strong
New Hampshire
- Nicholas Gilman
- John Langdon (pdf)
- New Jersey
- David Brearley
- Jonathan Dayton
- William Churchill Houston
- William Livingston
- William Paterson (pdf)
New York
- Alexander Hamilton
- John Lansing, Jr. (pdf)
- Robert Yates
North Carolina
- William Blount
- William R. Davie
- Alexander Martin
- Richard Dobbs Spaight
- Hugh Williamson (pdf)
Pennsylvania
- George Clymer
- Thomas FitzSimmons
- Benjamin Franklin (pdf)
- Jared Ingersoll
- Thomas Mifflin
- Gouverneur Morris (pdf)
- Robert Morris
- James Wilson (pdf)
South Carolina
- Pierce Butler
- Charles Pinckney
- Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (pdf)
- John Rutledge
Virginia
- John Blair
- James McClurg
- James Madison
- George Mason (pdf)
- Edmund Randolph (pdf)
- George Washington
- George Wythe