William Samuel Johnson - Signers Of The U.S. Constitution Canvas Print

William Samuel Johnson was born in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1727. He entered Yale College and graduated third in his class of fifteen in 1744. He continued at Yale, where he received a Master of Arts degree, and later was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Harvard College. Legal training came next, and Johnson began his practice in 1749. After serving as a member of the town council of Stratford and a justice of the peace, he was elected to the Connecticut legislature in 1765. In 1772, he served as a justice of Connecticut's superior court and was commissioned a major in the Connecticut militia. Johnson refused to serve when elected by the Connecticut legislature in 1774 as a delegate to the first Continental Congress. During the Revolutionary War, Johnson would not support the idea of American independence from Great Britain. The Connecticut legislature elected him as a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, and to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Johnson became one...