William Shippen

This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on William Shippen is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:

William Shippen
William Shippen
William Shippen
Born October 1, 1712
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died November 4, 1801
Germantown
Nationality American
Fields medicine
Known for anatomy

William Shippen, Sr. (October 1, 1712November 4, 1801) was an American physician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a civic and educational leader who represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress.

William was born to Joseph Shippen (1679-1741, son of Edward Shippen, governor of Pennsylvania) and Abigail Grosse Shippen (1677-1704) at Philadelphia. His father was a prominent merchant. William studied medicine and built a large practice in Philadelphia. In 1735 he married Susannah Harrison.

Shippen joined the vestrymen who founded the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia in 1742. He joined Benjamin Franklin and other civic leaders to found the Public Academy in 1749 and served as one of its trustees. When it merged with another school to become the College of Philadelphia he served as a trustee of the college from 1755 to 1779; the College is now the University of Pennsylvania. William's brother, Edward Shippen (1703-1781, grandfather of Peggy Shippen) was one of the founders of Princeton University, for which William served as a trustee for over thirty years.

The Pennsylvania Assembly chose Shippen as a delegate to the Continental Congress on November 20, 1778. He represented his state during congressional sessions in 1779 and 1780, after which he returned to his medical practice.

William remained active well into his eighties. He died at home in Germantown in 1801 and is buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard at Philadelphia.

His son, William Shippen, Jr., followed his father in a medical career and served as Director of Hospitals for the Continental Army. William, Jr.'s wife, Alice Lee, was the daughter of Thomas Lee of the Lee family of Virginia; their daughter Nancy Shippen married Robert Beekman Livingston, the son of Robert Livingston (1718-1775).

References

External links

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 2 November 2008, at 04:53.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "William Shippen".

The URL for this specific entry is:

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.