Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/218

214 within the bounds of the province. He was at Northampton during the occupation of Philadelphia by the British, but returned here on a pass, not long after the enemy evacuated the city, and he returned to Bush Hill, which he had inherited from his father, the Woodlands west of the Schuylkill having been left to his brother Andrew. James Hamilton died in New York 14 August, 1783. He was never married and his brother's son William succeeded to his estates including Bush Hill. He partook with his associates the like lively interest with them in the meetings of the Trustees and the affairs of the College, but his public concerns in the Council and otherwise forbad him a regular attendance at the meetings. His wealth joined to a personal influence gave him a position of great weight in the community, and a taste for scientific pursuits and a desire for the furtherance of public enterprises showed him to be a man of parts. He was for some years President of the Philosophical Society when it united with the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, and at the first election for the President of the new Society, 2 January, 1769, he and Franklin were placed in nomination, but the latter although then abroad, with his reputation in science and as the founder of the original Philosophical Society in 1743, was elected. The firmness and strength of his character are portrayed sufficiently in his letter to Thomas Penn already referred to. And there must have been between him and Franklin certain lines of sympathy in the proprietary contest, which was active at the time he was elected a Trustee, which served to bring the two often together in conference on the public situation. Hamilton's first administration as Governor is very completely portrayed in the Historical Reiew of Pennsylvania above referred to. ALEXANDER STEDMAN was born in 1703 the son of Robert Stedman of Kinross. He took part in the Stuart rising of 1745, was taken prisoner after Culloden, but escaped to America and settled in Philadelphia, and made his peace with the mother country. He was a sound lawyer and profound mathematician. He was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania