Alsop, John, 1724-1794

John Alsop Jr. (1724 – November 22, 1794) was an American Founding Father, merchant, and politician from New York City. As a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, he signed the 1774 Continental Association.

Born in New Windsor, Orange County in the British Province of New York, Alsop moved to New York City as a young man and entered the mercantile world with his brother Richard. Their enterprise prospered, and the Alsops, for several generations, became one of the great merchant houses of the city. During the first phases of the American Revolution, the Province of New York Assembly could not reach a conclusion about the Continental Congress. As a result, delegates were selected by the revolutionary committees in each county. In 1774, Alsop, along with James Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, and Isaac Low, was named as a delegate. When the Congress convened on September 5, Jay presented their credentials, and the Congress accepted.

As the revolution escalated in 1775, Alsop was one of the leaders of the Committee of Sixty which became the provisional government in New York City. As the Assembly continued to refuse to recognize the national Congress, he was elected to the alternative revolutionary New York Provincial Congress, and they in turn returned him to the Second Continental Congress. Alsop favored reconciliation with Great Britain and so resigned as a delegate to the Congress rather than sign the Declaration of Independence. When his home in Newtown was captured by the British in August 1776, he kept working from Manhattan. By September the British had occupied Manhattan as well, ending his effective contributions to the revolution. He escaped to Middletown, Connecticut, and remained there until the British occupation ended in 1783.

After the war he worked to help rebuild the family business and again became active as a civic leader. He was president of New York City's Chamber of Commerce in 1784 and 1785. Alsop died at his home in Newtown, Queens County, New York, on November 22, 1794, and is buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in Manhattan.