Joseph Shippen Jr. (72)

Joseph Shippen, Jr. (30 October 1732–18 February 1810) was a public official, merchant, astronomer, and military officer, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he attended the College of New Jersey and worked in his father’s counting-house before accepting a captain’s commission in a regiment of Pennsylvania troops. He participated in a 1759 attack on Fort Duquesne and conducted surveys of the Susquehanna River before resigning as a colonel. He then set sail for Europe with his kinsman John Allen, the son of the province’s chief justice and a fellow APS member. The trip brought them to numerous Italian cities, as well as England, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium. Returning to Philadelphia in 1761, Shippen was appointed Secretary of the Province and Clerk of the Governor’s Council. His responsibilities included storing the instruments used by APS Members Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in their survey of the disputed Pennsylvania-Maryland border. Shippen also served on the APS committee tasked with building an observatory for the Transit of Venus. In 1770 he was elected to the Philadelphia Common Council. He supported the repeal of the Stamp Act but was troubled by the prospect of independence. He played no role in the American Revolution, relocating outside of Philadelphia when the proprietary government was dismantled. He was briefly suspected of disloyalty to the new nation before taking the oath of allegiance. He resumed his mercantile activities without success before regaining a measure of prosperity with his 1786 appointment as judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Lancaster County. His father Edward Shippen III of Lancaster, brother Edward Shippen IV, uncle William Shippen, Sr., and cousin William Shippen, Jr. were APS members. (PI)