Edward Shippen (February 16, 1729 – April 15, 1806)[1] was an American lawyer, judge, government official, and prominent figure in colonial and post-revolutionary Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His fourth daughter, Margaret Shippen, was the second wife of Benedict Arnold.
Early life
Shippen was born in Philadelphia, the son of merchant Edward Shippen III and, his first wife, Sarah Plumley.[2] He learned law from Tench Francis, Pennsylvania's attorney general. He married his mentor's daughter Margaret Francis in 1753, with whom he had nine children. In 1748 he went to London to complete his law studies at the Middle Temple, and, after returning to Philadelphia, was admitted to the bar.[3]
Career
Coat of Arms of Edward ShippenPortrait of Edward Shippen IV, by Robert Feke, 1750.
He was appointed judge of the admiralty court in 1755. Three years later, he was elected to the city's common council. In 1762, he was appointed prothonotary of the supreme court, a post retained till the Revolution. He became a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council in 1770.[3]
Shippen attempted to stay neutral in the American Revolution, hoping that the colonies and the mother country would be reconciled. He did not support the extension of royal authority and was therefore not a Loyalist, but he also opposed the radically democratic Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which sought to reduce the hold on government by powerful families like the Shippens.[1]
In 1791, he was appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, serving with Jasper Yeates and Edward Burd, both kinsmen and former students. Shippen became chief justice in 1799.[3] Shippen was impeached on flimsy political grounds on March 23, 1804 by the Democratic–Republican-led Pennsylvania House of Representatives alongside the other two Federalist justices of the Supreme Court, Thomas Smith and Jasper Yeates. The sole Democratic–Republican member of the court, who had been not in attendance on the day the court heard the case central to the impeachment, was not impeached. The justices were not removed, being acquitted in their impeachment trial before the Pennsylvania Senate in the vote held on January 28, 1805.[3][4] The next year the Pennsylvania Senate acquitted him and his associates. Shippen retired to private life and died soon thereafter.[3]
Personal life
On November 29, 1753, Shippen was married to Margaret Francis (1735–1794), a daughter of Tench Francis and Elizabeth Turbutt, at Christ Church in Philadelphia.[5] Together, they were the parents of nine children:[6]
Elizabeth Shippen (1754–1828), who married her cousin Col. Edward Burd, son of Col. James Burd and Sarah Shippen, in 1778.[2]
Sarah Shippen (1756–1831), who married Thomas Lea, son of Eleanor and Thomas Lea of Dublin, Ireland, in 1787.[2]
Mary Shippen (b. 1757), who married, as his second wife, Dr. William McIlvaine of Burlington, New Jersey.[2]
Edward Shippen (1758–1809), a doctor married Elizabeth Juliana Footman, daughter of Eleanor and Thomas Footman, in 1785.[2]
Randolph Shipley Klein, Portrait of an Early American Family: The Shippens of Pennsylvania Across Five Generations. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975.
