William Paterson
(1745-1806)
BIRTH
December 24, 1745
PLACE
County Antrim, Ireland
DEATH
September 9, 1806
PLACE
Albany, New York
FAMILY
WIFE
Cornelia Bell Paterson
(1755-1783)
HOMES
Delegate to the Constitutional Convention (NJ)
1787
POLITICAL VIEWS
EQUAL STATE REPRESENTATION ADVOCATE
FEDERALIST PARTY MEMBER
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
CHRISTIAN
PRESBYTERIAN
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
William Paterson was a New Jersey lawyer and Patriot official who was the state’s attorney general during the Revolution. He was born December 24, 1745, in County Antrim, Ireland, to Richard Paterson and Mary Paterson. His family was of Scots-Irish Presbyterian background. He later proposed the New Jersey Plan at the Constitutional Convention and became governor and a United States Supreme Court justice. He died on Sep 9, 1806 in Albany, New York.
EARLY LIFE
William Paterson was born on December 24, 1745, in County Antrim, Ireland, to Richard Paterson and Mary Paterson. His family was of Scots-Irish Presbyterian background. When William was still a child, the Patersons emigrated to British North America, joining the large movement of Ulster families seeking land and opportunity. They eventually settled in Princeton, New Jersey, where his father became a merchant. Immigration shaped Paterson’s childhood. He grew up between inherited memories of Ireland and the commercial, religious, and educational life of the middle colonies. His family valued schooling and placed him at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. He graduated in 1763 and remained for a master’s degree. The college’s Presbyterian environment emphasized classical languages, rhetoric, logic, moral philosophy, and public responsibility. Paterson then studied law under Richard Stockton, one of New Jersey’s leading attorneys and a future signer of the Declaration of Independence. Reading law involved close study of English authorities, copying pleadings, observing courts, and learning the property and debt disputes common in colonial practice. He was admitted to the bar in 1768 and began building a career in New Bromley and later in other New Jersey communities. In 1770 he married Cornelia Bell, with whom he had three children before her early death. Marriage and legal practice rooted him firmly in the province. He also joined literary and political circles that included former Princeton classmates and other young professionals. Before he became a Revolutionary official, constitutional framer, governor, or Supreme Court justice, Paterson had experienced migration, cultural adaptation, rigorous Presbyterian education, and professional apprenticeship. He was not born into New Jersey’s old landed elite; his advancement depended on family sacrifice, academic achievement, legal competence, and cultivated relationships.
William Paterson practiced law in New Jersey before entering revolutionary politics. As secretary to the provincial congresses, he helped record the colony's transition to independent government and its constitution of 1776. He then served as New Jersey's attorney general through much of the Revolutionary War, combining prosecution and administration with private legal work.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Paterson presented the New Jersey Plan. It proposed strengthening the existing confederation while retaining equal state representation in a single legislative chamber. The proposal challenged the population-based representation favored by larger states. Although it was not adopted as a complete system, its defense of small-state interests helped shape the compromise that created equal representation in the Senate. Paterson signed the finished Constitution.
He became one of New Jersey's first United States senators in 1789 and helped frame the Judiciary Act, which organized the federal courts. He then served as governor, promoting revision and codification of state law. His administration supported the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures and the development around the Great Falls of the Passaic River, connecting public policy with plans for an American manufacturing economy.
George Washington appointed Paterson an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1793. He also sat on circuit, as justices then did, bringing federal law into courts outside the capital. His opinions addressed property, taxation, constitutional limits, and federal-state authority. In Van Horne's Lessee v. Dorrance, decided on circuit in 1795, he argued that a state law contrary to its constitution could not stand, contributing to early practice of judicial review. He remained on the Supreme Court until his death in 1806. His career emphasized workable legal institutions through constitutional negotiation, legislation, executive office, and judging.
CAREER
DEATH
William Paterson was a New Jersey lawyer and Patriot official who was the state’s attorney general during the Revolution. His family was of Scots-Irish Presbyterian background. He later proposed the New Jersey Plan at the Constitutional Convention and became governor and a United States Supreme Court justice. On September 9, 1806, Paterson, aged 60, died from the lingering effects of a coach accident suffered in 1803 while on circuit court duty in New Jersey. He was on his way to the spa at Ballston Springs, New York, to "take the waters", when he died at the Van Rensselaer Manor home of his daughter, Cornelia, and son-in-law, Stephen Van Rensselaer, in Albany, New York. He was laid to rest in the Van Renssalaer family vault. When the city acquired the property, Paterson's remains were relocated to Albany Rural Cemetery Menands in Albany County, New York. The surviving summary is clearer about the date and setting than about the day-by-day medical course. A specific treatment history, exact final symptoms or unrecorded bedside conversations cannot be reconstructed confidently from it. The events of the earlier public career provide context for the final period but should not be mistaken for evidence of the immediate physical cause. Illnesses, injuries and deaths involving relatives or contemporaries are separate events.
Albany Rural Cemetery
3 Cemetery Ave, Albany, NY 12204
GRAVE
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
The list combines biographies where available with clearly labelled related studies, memoirs, primary accounts or biographical references.
1. William Paterson: Lawyer and Statesman, 1745–1806 — John E. O'Connor. Find on Amazon
2. Seriatim: The Supreme Court Before John Marshall — Scott Douglas Gerber (editor). [Collective biography including Paterson] Find on Amazon
3. The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–2012 — Clare Cushman (editor). [Collective biography including Paterson] Find on Amazon
4. Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution — M. E. Bradford. [Collective biography including Paterson] Find on Amazon
5. Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution — Robert K. Wright Jr. and Morris J. MacGregor Jr. [Collective biography including Paterson] Find on Amazon
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