Paterson, William, 1745-1806

Patterson immigrated from Ireland as a child, and practiced law from 1769. He was attorney general of New Jersey (1776-1783), a member of the Constitutional Convention (1787), and associate justice of the Supreme Court (1793-1806).

William Paterson (1745-1806), was a prominent New Jersey attorney, senator (1789), and governor (1791) who became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1793).

Governor of New Jersey and U.S. senator and supreme court justice.

Paterson was a member of the Constitutional Convention and a signer; also governor of New Jersey, Associate Justice on Supreme Court.

Paterson was a signer of the U.S. Constitution, Governor of New Jersey, 1790-1793, and an Associate Justice of the United State Supreme Court, 1793-1806.

William Paterson (1745-1806) served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1793 to 1806. He had previously served as Governor of New Jersey from 1790-1793, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1789-1790, and a delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, where he was one of the original signers of the U.S. Constitution.

Born in Ireland in 1745, William Paterson's parents brought him to America a few years later. There he grew up in Princeton and attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1769 and went into private practice in Raritan, New Jersey. He later served as secretary to New Jersey's Provincial Congress before being named Attorney General in 1776, a position to which he served until 1783. Between 1780 and 1781 he served as a member of the Continental Congress. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from 1789-1790 and then became Governor of New Jersey until 1793. In 1793 he was appointed Justice of the United States Supreme Court until his death in 1806.