Ramsay, David, 1749-1815

<ul><b>RACES</b>
<li>11/03/1794 SC US Senate Lost 31.03% (-4.14%)</li>
<li>11/25/1788 SC District 01 Lost 15.53% (-37.56%)</li>
<li>12/31/1785 SC Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1784 SC Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1782 SC Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1781 SC Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
</ul>

<p>David Ramsay (April 2, 1749 – May 8, 1815) was an American physician, public official, and historian from Charleston, South Carolina. He was one of the first major historians of the American Revolutionary War. During the Revolution he served in the South Carolina legislature until he was captured by the British. After his release he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782–1783 and again in 1785–1786. Afterwards he served in the state House and Senate until retiring from public service. In 1803, Ramsay was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He was murdered in 1815 by a mentally ill man whom Ramsay had examined as a physician. He is the first American politician to be assassinated.</p>

<p>David Ramsay was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the son of a Scottish emigrant. His brother was Nathaniel Ramsey, a Congressman and a brother-in-law of painter Charles Willson Peale.</p>

<p>He attended college at Princeton, and graduated in 1765. In 1773, he received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Ramsay settled in Charleston, South Carolina, where he built a large practice as a physician.</p>

RAMSAY, David, (Brother of Nathaniel Ramsey), a Delegate from South Carolina; born in Dunmore, Lancaster County, Pa., April 2, 1749; attended the common schools, and was graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1765; was graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1773 and began practice in Cecil County, Md.; settled in Charleston, S.C., in 1773; member of the state house of representatives 1776-1783; served in the Revolutionary Army as surgeon of the Charleston Battalion of Artillery, state militia; captured at the fall of Charleston in May 1780 and imprisoned at St. Augustine, Fla., for eleven months; Member of the Continental Congress 1782-1783 and 1785-1786 and served as President pro tempore during the last term; unsuccessfully contested the election of William L. Smith to the First Congress (the first contested-election case); state historian and author of several historical works; member of the state senate of South Carolina and served as president of that body for seven years; shot by a maniac on May 6, 1815, in Charleston, S.C., and died in that city May 8, 1815; interment in Circular Congregational Church Burying Ground, Charleston, Charleston County, S.C.