Samuel Sitgreaves was born March 16, 1764, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of merchant William Sitgreaves, Jr., and Susannah Deshon. Sitgreaves studied law and was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar in 1783, the same year that he married Francenia Allibone. He began practicing law in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1786. In 1790, he served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention, and was elected to Congress as a Federalist, serving from 1795 until his resignation in 1798. In 1796, after the early death of his first wife, he married Mary Kemper. In 1798, the House of Representatives chose Sitgreaves to conduct impeachment proceedings against Senator William Blount, who had allegedly conspired with a British agent to seize Spanish territory in Florida and Louisiana for the British. In August of the same year, he became a United States commissioner to Great Britain, to hear British debt cases under Article VI of the Jay Treaty. Sitgreaves also served as burgess of Easton, Pennsylvania (1804-1807); treasurer of Northampton County (1816-1819); and president of the Easton Bank (1815-1827). He died April 4, 1827.
From the guide to the Samuel Sitgreaves papers, Sitgreaves, Samuel papers, 1800, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
