William Tilghman was an American lawyer, politician, jurist and statesman from Maryland.
Background
Tilghman was born on August 12 at "Fausley" in Talbot County, Md. He was the son of James and Anna (Francis) Tilghman. He was the cousin of Edward Tilghman, the nephew of Matthew Tilghman, the brother of Tench Tilghman, and the grandson of Tench Francis.
He was the great-grandson of Richard Tilghman, a physician who emigrated from England to Maryland in 1661. His father, also a lawyer, sat in the Maryland Assembly and, after moving to Philadelphia about 1762, was secretary of the proprietary land office.
Education
The boy entered the College, Academy, and Charitable School of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, in 1763 and in 1769 entered the college department, from which he was graduated in 1772.
Career
From 1772 to 1776, he read law in the office of Benjamin Chew. In the Revolutionary War, both he and his father were loyalist and late in 1776 retired to the family estate in Maryland. He lived quietly reading law and classical literature and in 1783 was admitted to practice in Maryland.
He first entered public life as a member of the Maryland Assembly, 1788, 1789, and 1790. In 1791 he became a member of the Maryland Senate, but in 1793 he resigned and removed to Philadelphia, where he was admitted to the bar on September 1, 1794.
On March 3, 1801, President Adams appointed him one of the "midnight judges, " chief judge of the third circuit court. When this court was abolished in 1802 he resumed his law practice until his appointment in 1805 as president judge of the court of common pleas for the district embracing Philadelphia and the surrounding counties, and he also became a judge of the Pennsylvania high court of errors and appeals. In 1806 he was commissioned chief justice of the Pennsylvania supreme court, over which he presided until his death.
As a judge he was careful to remain aloof from the bitter partisanship of Pennsylvania politics. During his tenure the judges of the supreme court prepared for the legislature a report of the English statutes in force in Pennsylvania.
His chief contribution as a jurist was the incorporation of the principles of scientific equity with the law of Pennsylvania. His Address Delivered before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture (1820), of which society he was an active member, reflects his keen interest in agriculture and his experiments on the family estate in Maryland.
He was one of the early advocates of a line of canals between the Susquehanna and Alleghany rivers.
He was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania from 1802 until his death.
He was the author of An Eulogium in Commemoration of Doctor Caspar Wistar (1818), which was delivered before the American Philosophical Society. He died in Philadelphia.
Achievements
Politics
A silent adherent of the federal Constitution rather than an enthusiastic supporter of it, he was a delegate to the Maryland convention for ratification.
A firm believer in the development of home industry, for the last ten years of his life he refused to wear any article of cloth not made in the United States.
Membership
A member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Tilghman served as its president from 1824 to his death in 1827.
In 1816, Tilghman was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Personality
Slight of frame, unpretentious in manner, his gentle and amiable disposition commanded high respect from members of the bar.
Connections
On July 1, 1794, he had married Margaret Elizabeth, the daughter of James Allen. They had one daughter.