Edward Shippen IV (67)

Edward Shippen IV (16 February 1729–15 April 1806) was a lawyer, judge, and public official, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born into a prominent Philadelphia family, he was apprenticed to Pennsylvania’s attorney general before completing his legal education at London’s Middle Temple. Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1750, familial connections to Chief Justice William Allen and Deputy Governor James Hamilton, both APS members, gave Shippen opportunities for political office. Although he supported resistance to the Stamp Act, he was ambivalent about the American Revolution and struggled to stay neutral. In fact, the radical Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 was often understood as an indictment of elite families like the Shippens. In its wake, he lost the offices of judge of the admiralty court, prothonotary of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and member of the Common Council and Governor’s Council. Shippen refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary government, opting instead to sign a parole that obliged him not to flee or meddle in the new government. British losses nudged him toward a more supportive stance, but his daughter’s wedding to an American officer undermined the reconciliation it was meant to effect when her new husband Benedict Arnold committed treason. Shippen’s wealth and power continued to decline before he was named justice of the peace and president of the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia County, among other offices, in the mid-1780s. He was appointed to the state’s Supreme Court in 1791 and became chief justice in 1799, but he was impeached in 1804 when a controversial case intersected with party politics. He retired following his acquittal in 1805. His father Edward Shippen III of Lancaster, brother Joseph Shippen, Jr., uncle William Shippen, Sr., and cousin William Shippen, Jr. were APS members. (PI, ANB, DAB)