Declaration of Independence Signer Thomas McKean and Mercer Land Warrant for Sale

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Declaration of Independence Signer Thomas McKean and Mercer Land Warrant For Sale

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Declaration of Independence Signer Thomas McKean and Mercer Land Warrant:
$745.00

Thomas McKean(pronounced mc-Kane) (March 19, 1734– June 24, 1817) was an American lawyer, politician, andFounding Father. During theAmerican Revolution, he was aDelawaredelegate to theContinental CongressinPhiladelphia, where he signed theContinental Association, theDeclaration of Independence, and theArticles of Confederation. McKean served as aPresident of Congress.

McKean was at various times a member of theFederalistand theDemocratic-Republicanparties. McKean served aspresident of Delaware, chief justice of Pennsylvania, and the secondgovernor of Pennsylvania.[1]He also held numerous other public offices.

Jasper Yeates was born inPhiladelphiaon April 9, 1745 to John and Elizabeth Sidebotham Yeates. He graduated from the College of Philadelphia with a Bachelor of Arts in 1758 and later received a Master of Arts degree. He studied law and was admitted to the Bar of Philadelphia in 1765. He traveled to England to study at theInns of Courtfor his legal training, as was typical of other colonial aspiring families.[1]

His career began inLancaster, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia where he became a prominent member of the bar. On December 30, 1767 he married Sarah Burd, eldest daughter of ColonelJames Burdand his wife Sarah Shippen. During theAmerican Revolution, he sided with thePatriotcause. In 1776, he served as a commissioner to investigate Native American affairs inPittsburgh.[2]Yeates was a prominent lawyer in Lancaster and during his career he built a fine library of legal books in several languages totaling 1,043 volumes in all. Most were purchased in Dublin and London. The library today is housed in its entirety in the library of LancasterHistory.org in Lancaster, Pa. where it is available for scholarly research.

After the Revolution, Yeates was a delegate to the Pennsylvania convention that ratified theUnited States Constitutionin 1787.

Appointed as a justice of thePennsylvania Supreme Courtin 1791, he served until his death in 1817.[2]Smith wasimpeachedon flimsy political grounds on March 23, 1804 by House of Representativesalongside the other twoFederalistjustices of the Supreme Court,Edward Shippen IVandThomas Smith. The sole Democratic–Republican member of the court, who had been not in attendance on the day the court heard the case central to the impeachment, was not impeached. The justices were not removed, being acquitted in theirimpeachment trialbefore thePennsylvania Senatein the vote held on January 28, 1805.[3]

A Federalist, he was appointed by theWashington administrationin 1794 to serve on a commission sent to negotiate an end to theWhiskey Rebellion.[4]Yeates died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on March 14, 1817 and is buried in St. James Episcopal Church cemetery along with his wife Sarah, who died October 25, 1829

lthough within the limits of Pennsylvania, as defined by the charter of Charles II of England in 1681, the Indian title to the lands in this part of the State was not extinguished by purchase until January, 1785, at Fort McIntosh, where the town of Beaver now stands. In the previous October, the commissioners, appointed by the Congress of the United States, met the chief men of the Six Nations of Indians at Fort Stanwix, in New York State, to negotiate a peace and settle upon boundaries, at which time and place the commissioners of Pennsylvania made a purchase of the right and title of the Six Nations to all their lands within the limits of the State. The treaty at Fort McIntosh was held with other tribes, the Delawares and Wyandots being among the number, and claiming property in lands included within the limits of the State; and from them the commissioners made a further purchase, thus extinguishing, as they supposed, all Indian title to the soil of Pennsylvania, a little over a hundred years after the date of the charter to William Penn, and four years after the King of England had specifically recognized Pennsylvania to\' be a free and sovereign State.

These last purchases constitute very near a third part of the territory of the State, including the whole of the present counties of Lawrence, Mercer, Crawford, Venango, Clarion, Forrest, Warren, McKean, Potter, Tioga, Clinton, Cameron and Elk, and parts of Beaver, Armstrong, Clearfield, Lycoming, Bradford and Erie. A part of Erie County, the triangle, was afterward, in 1792, purchased from the United States and the Six Nations of Indians.

In the spring and summer of 1785, a few months after the extinguishment of the Indian title, surveyors entered on this part of the new purchase, making and numbering different sized tracts of land for donation to the Pennsylvania line of Revolutionary soldiers. The dissatisfaction of the Indians, it is presumed, interrupted this work, for it soon became evident that they were not satisfied with the manner in which Pennsylvania had bargained with them. In 1791 the Seneca chiefs, Cornplanter, Half-Town and Great Tree, in a speech to Gen. Washington, the President of the United States, thus make their complaint with regard to this matter: