Livingston, Philip, 1716-1778

Philip Livingston (January 15, 1716 – June 12, 1778) was an American merchant and statesman from New York City. He represented New York at the October 1774 First Continental Congress, where he favored imposing economic sanctions upon Great Britain as a way of pressuring the British Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts. He was also a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1778, and signed the Declaration of Independence, thus becoming one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Born in Albany, New York, he graduated from Yale College before returning to Albany to serve a mercantile apprenticeship under his father. Through his father's influence, he obtained clerkships in Albany's local government. He then settled in New York City and pursued a career in the import business, trading with the British sugar islands in the West Indies. During King George's War (1744–1748), Livingston made his fortune provisioning and privateering. He also speculated heavily in real estate and the slave trade. In 1754, Livingston went as a delegate to the Albany Congress. There, he joined delegates from several other colonies to negotiate with Indians and discuss common plans for dealing with the French and Indian War. Livingston became an active promoter of efforts to raise and fund troops for the war.

He served as a member of the provincial house of representatives from 1763 to 1769 and in 1768 served as speaker. In October 1765, he attended the Stamp Act Congress, which produced the first formal protest to the Crown as a prelude to the American Revolution. He joined New York City's Committee of Correspondence to continue communication with leaders in the other colonies, and New York City's Committee of Sixty. When New York established the New York Provincial Congress in 1775, he was named its president. He was selected as one of the delegates to the Continental Congress. His brother William, a prominent lawyer in New Jersey, was also a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to June 1776. Like many of the early Patriots, he initially did not advocate a complete break from the mother country but eventually aligned himself with the opposition to the measures the British were imposing on the colonists.

After the adoption of the new New York State Constitution, he was appointed to the New York State Senate southern district in 1777, while continuing to sit in the Continental Congress. Livingston suffered from dropsy, and his health deteriorated in 1778. Livingston died suddenly while attending the sixth session of Congress in York, Pennsylvania, and is buried in the Prospect Hill Cemetery there.