Philip Pell: Revolutionary Officer and Last Member of the Continental Congress

Philip Pell's marble gravestone at St. Paul's, in the 1930s. NPS.

Philip Pell, buried at St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, helped win American independence through military and government service — yet opposed its most lasting achievement, a strong federal government.

A gentry son

• Born: July 7, 1753, in Pelham, New York, about 20 miles north of New York City, to the family that settled the town in the 17th century. As the third of his name, he is sometimes called Philip Pell Jr. or Philip Pell III.
• Education: King's College (now Columbia), graduating in 1770; then law, joining the New York bar on the eve of the Revolution. Another era might have made him a Westchester country squire; instead the Revolution became the center of his life.

The war

• Militia: a lieutenant in the county militia in 1776 — posts that went to leading families. He may have seen combat in the New York campaign; the battlefield was his younger brother Samuel T. Pell's role. Philip served through administration.
• Military lawyer: in 1777, deputy Judge Advocate of the Continental Army — advising senior officers, interpreting regulations and prosecuting courts-martial. He almost certainly met Washington and probably befriended the Marquis de Lafayette.
• Legislator: elected to the state legislature in 1778, serving three years at Poughkeepsie and becoming a lifelong ally of Governor George Clinton, in a state split between British and American control and torn by civil war between Patriots and Loyalists.

Prisoners and the "neutral ground"

As commissary of prisoners, Pell exchanged captured militia for enemy soldiers. British and Loyalist raiders from bases near King's Bridge swept Westchester's lethal "neutral ground" for supplies, and skirmishes took many prisoners. By 1780 the British held more militia than the Americans held Redcoats, so they refused exchanges, and captured Patriots could end up on the East River prison ships, where thousands died. Pell wrote to Clinton:

"above thirty of the most valuable militia of this County are now prisoners with the Enemy, and two of them have lately died in confinement, yet it is not in my power to relieve them as I have not a sufficient number of the Enemy … the Enemy discover a backwardness, seemingly for the sake of murdering ours by inches."

Late in 1780 he reported the county almost undefended — Loyalist leader DeLancey's raiders had carried off the leading men of North Castle, Bedford had been burned, and Salem was now the frontier:

"The People of Westchester County think themselves given up to ruin, are discouraged, and worn out … unless something is done, Westchester County, in less than a month, will be totally in the Enemy's power."

On Washington's staff

• Acting Judge Advocate General: many sketches say he held the post, but the office's history names only James Innes and Richard Howell, who declined it. Pell, a colonel on Washington's staff from 1781 to 1783, apparently did the job without Congress's formal appointment, until Lieutenant Thomas Edward of Massachusetts was chosen in October 1782.
• Evacuation Day: he rode in the triumphant march down Broadway into New York City on November 25, 1783, as the last British troops left — a high point after seven years of war.

After the war

• Family: he built a law practice in Pelham with his second wife Ann Lewis and his son Philip, born in 1780 to his first wife Mary Ward, who died in 1781.
• Slavery: like many wealthy Westchester families — and other Revolutionary leaders — he separated independence from freedom for those who worked his estate. The census lists three people enslaved by Pell in 1790 and nine in 1800, but none by 1810 — perhaps a change of conscience, and in step with manumissions after New York's 1799 gradual emancipation law.
• Public life: a leader of St. Paul's parish (a pew in the restored church bears his name); County Surrogate from 1787 to 1796, ruling on wills; one of the first Regents of the University of the State of New York in the 1780s.

Anti-Federalist

Back in the legislature in the mid and late 1780s, Pell, with Clinton, opposed a stronger central government. His reasons aren't recorded; he may have believed, as thousands did, that liberty was local and consolidation tyranny. That was unusual for a former Continental officer and Washington aide — most had seen the weak Confederation's failures and become nationalists — but much of Pell's war had been spent serving New York.

• 1788: he ran as an Anti-Federalist delegate to the ratifying convention at Poughkeepsie in July. An opponents' broadside (on the Library of Congress website) accused his supporters of deceiving voters. He lost to a Federalist. Anti-Federalists still won most seats, but once enough states had ratified, New York did too.
• The last Congress: Clinton's party chose Pell for the Continental Congress in 1788–1789, its final session. He joined the last session to reach a quorum on October 10, 1788 — and on March 2, 1789, at Fraunces Tavern, he was the only member present. Looking over an empty room, he adjourned sine die — never to meet again — the government that had won independence.

Final years

Pell largely left public life, though he stayed with the Clinton forces, which became the Republican (Jeffersonian) party. When John Jay's Federalists won in 1797, they removed him as Surrogate; he sought reinstatement when Clinton returned in 1801. He died on May 1, 1811, at 57, and was buried at St. Paul's near his brother and father, both veterans of the cause. In 1824, his wartime friend Lafayette, touring Revolutionary sites, paid his respects at the grave.

Sources

Based on "Philip Pell: Revolutionary War leader, Last member of the Continental Congress," St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.