Portraits of Colonials

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FROM NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

Connecticut

  • Ethan Allen – Farmer, businessman, patriot, politician, founder of the state of Vermont
  • Benedict Arnold – Talented Continental Army general who defected to the British
  • Silas Deane – Merchant, Continental congressman, diplomat to France
  • Samuel Huntington – Lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, CT governor
  • Israel Putnam – Militia general, fought with distinction at the British at Bunker Hill
  • Roger Sherman – Lawyer and politician from CT; signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • John Trumbull – American artist, soldier at the Battle of Trenton

Massachusetts

  • Abigail Adams – Wife of John Adams, mother of John Quincy Adams
  • John Adams – Signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat, second President
  • John Quincy Adams – Diplomat, senator, sixth President, congressman
  • Samuel Adams – Boston revolutionary leader, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • Mather Brown – American-born painter, active in England
  • John Singleton Copley – American painter, principally active in London after 1774
  • Ralph Earl – American painter, principally of portraits
  • Elbridge Gerry – Signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president under Madison
  • John Hancock – Merchant, signer of the Declaration of Independence, MA governor
  • Thomas Hutchinson – Last Royal Governor of MA
  • Henry Knox – Continental Army general, chief artillery officer, first Secretary of War
  • James Otis, Jr. – Lawyer, politician, Boston revolutionary
  • Paul Revere – Artisan, Boston revolutionary, militia soldier, foundryman
  • Betsy Ross – Philadelphia seamstress and upholsterer
  • Joseph Warren – Boston doctor, revolutionary, militia general
  • Mercy Otis Warren – Playwright, historian, sister of James Otis, Jr., wife of James Warren

New Hampshire

  • John Sullivan – Continental Army general, Continental Congress delegate, NH governor

Rhode Island

  • William Ellery – Signer of the Declaration of Independence from RI
  • Nathanael Greene – Continental Army general; key to winning the war in the South
  • Gilbert Stuart – American painter of quintessential portraits, including George Washington

FROM MIDDLE COLONIES

Delaware

  • George Read – Lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, senator for DE

New Jersey

New York

Pennsylvania

  • John Dickinson – Lawyer, politician, writer, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • Benjamin Franklin – Philadelphia printer, writer, scientist, inventor, diplomat to France
  • Robert Morris – Signer of the Declaration of Independence, “Financier of the Revolution”
  • Thomas Paine – Author, revolutionary, political philosopher
  • Rembrandt Peale – American painter, son of Charles Willson Peale
  • Benjamin Rush – Philadelphia doctor, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • William Rush – American sculptor
  • Arthur St. Clair – Continental Army general, surrendered Fort Ticonderoga to the British
  • Anthony Wayne – Continental Army general, defeated the British at Stony Point
  • Benjamin West – American-born painter who moved to England in 1763
  • James Wilson – Lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Supreme Court justice

FROM SOUTHERN COLONIES

Maryland

South Carolina

  • Ralph Izard – Financier, Continental congressman, U.S. senator
  • Henry Laurens – Merchant, planter, slave trader, president of Continental Congress
  • John Laurens – Continental Army officer, aide-de-camp to Washington, son of Henry Laurens
  • Charles Pinckney – Soldier, Constitutional Convention delegate, South Carolina governor
  • Charles Cotesworth Pinckney – Lawyer, soldier, delegate to the Constitutional Convention
  • John Rutledge – SC governor, second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

Virginia

  • Horatio Gates – Continental Army general, won the Battles of Saratoga
  • Patrick Henry – Lawyer, orator, VA governor
  • Thomas Jefferson – Lawyer, polymath, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, third President
  • Arthur Lee – Diplomat to France, Continental congressman
  • Charles Lee – Continental Army general, formerly a British officer
  • Francis Lightfoot Lee – VA politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence
  • Henry Lee III – ”Light Horse Harry”; Continental Army officer, VA governor
  • Richard Henry Lee – VA revolutionary, signer of the Declaration of Independence, senator
  • William Lee – Mercantilist, diplomat
  • James Madison – Constitutionalist, congressman, Secretary of State, fourth President
  • John Marshall – Soldier, lawyer, politician, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
  • George Mason – Politician, author, political philosopher, Anti-Federalist
  • James Monroe – Soldier, lawyer, VA governor, diplomat, fifth President
  • Daniel Morgan – Militia soldier, military tactician, Continental Army general
  • Edmund Randolph – Lawyer, VA governor, Constitutional Convention delegate
  • Peyton Randolph – Lawyer, VA politician, first president of Continental Congress
  • George Washington – Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army; first President
  • Martha Washington – Wife of George Washington, First Lady; 1731—1802
  • George Wythe – Lawyer, teacher, scholar, signer of the Declaration of Independence

The First Congress faced a unique challenge, and those congressmen and senators who gathered in New York in the spring of 1789 were awed by what lay ahead of them. Not only would members of the Congress have to pass some promised amendments to the new Constitution, but they would have to fill out the bare framework of a government that the Philadelphia Convention had created, including the organization of the executive and judicial departments. Some therefore saw the First Congress as something in the nature of a second constitutional convention.

— Gordon S. Wood
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)