Three primary documents from the New York merchant who helped found Columbia University, lost his homes to the British, and died in Congress before the war ended.
Philip Livingston was born January 15, 1716 in Albany, New York, the son of Philip Livingston (second Lord of the Manor of Livingston) and Catherine Van Brugh. He graduated from Yale in 1737 and built one of the most successful merchant trading businesses in New York City. He served on the New York Board of Aldermen from 1754 to 1762 and in the provincial house of representatives from 1763 to 1769, serving as speaker in 1768.
Livingston was a moderate, cautious about independence, attentive to the risks of disorder. He attended the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, the First Continental Congress in 1774, and the Second Continental Congress from 1775 onward. The New York delegation did not receive authorization to vote for independence until July 9, 1776. When that authorization came, Livingston signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, at age sixty.
Livingston was one of the founders of King's College in New York, which became Columbia University. He was also involved in the founding of New York's first hospital and promoted the development of civic institutions throughout his career. His work as a merchant and as a civic builder made him one of the most influential men in pre-Revolutionary New York.
When British forces occupied New York after the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, Livingston's New York homes fell into British hands. He never recovered them. His papers from the Continental Congress years are documented at the LOC House Archives.
Member of the Continental Congress from 1774 until his death; a signer of the Declaration of Independence; president of the New York Provincial Convention in 1775; prominent in commercial and educational societies; died while attending the sixth session of the Continental Congress in York, Pa., June 12, 1778.
After the adoption of the New York State Constitution, Livingston was elected to the state senate while continuing in the Continental Congress. When British forces occupied Philadelphia in 1777, Congress moved to York, Pennsylvania. Livingston traveled to York in 1778 to attend the sixth session of Congress. On June 12, 1778, before the war was won and before independence was secured, Philip Livingston died of an illness at York. He was sixty-two years old.
He was the third signer to die after John Morton and Button Gwinnett. He did not live to see the outcome of the Revolution he had supported. He was buried in a tomb at Prospect Hill Cemetery in York, Pennsylvania. The tomb is marked by an obelisk erected by his grandson Stephen Van Rensselaer.