Road to Liberty: John Witherspoon

The only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, John Witherspoon, born in 1723 in Yester, Scotland, came from a long line of religious leaders. 

By age four, he could read the Bible, and when he was 13, he was sent to study at the University of Edinburgh. After being assigned to his first parish in 1745, he wed Elizabeth Montgomery in 1748 and they had nine children. 

In 1768, Witherspoon and his family arrived in America after he accepted an offer to be the sixth president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). By 1770, Witherspoon advocated for resistance to the Crown in a commencement address. 

In 1776, after signing the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon, in response to a delegate who claimed that the country was “not ripe for revolution,” argued that “we are not only ripe for the measure but in danger of rotting for the want of it.”

Following the signing, British troops occupied and destroyed parts of the college, which led Witherspoon to close the doors for a time. But Witherspoon dedicated his efforts to rebuilding Princeton after the war. 

Advocating for a curriculum of public service, Witherspoon’s students included James Madison, Aaron Burr, 12 members of the Continental Congress, several delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and various U.S. Representatives, Senators, and federal justices. 

As a founding father and esteemed University leader, Witherspoon also served as a member of New Jersey’s convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution. After a lifetime of service promoting classical learning and politics grounded in Judeo-Christian ethics, Witherspoon died in 1794 at age 71.