Hugh Williamson

A politician, scientist, and medical doctor, the versatile Williamson has been called “North Carolina’s Benjamin Franklin.” Born in Philadelphia, Williamson studied medicine in The Netherlands. After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Britain’s blockade of the American coast complicated his efforts to return home and apparently led him to Edenton, North Carolina. An outspoken critic of Britain’s colonial policies, he enthusiastically embraced the American cause, but Williamson is best known as the de facto leader of the North Carolina delegation to the federal Constitutional Convention of 1787. Among the most vocal of the delegates, he was a strong nationalist, but also a force for compromise and moderation, and he was a leader in Federalist efforts to secure ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina. Williamson retired to New York in 1793, another case of a prominent revolutionary figure fading perhaps prematurely from North Carolina's political scene.