Thomas Wharton, the son of John and Mary (Dobbins) Wharton, was born in Chester County, Pa. , the second of five children. First cousin of Robert and Samuel Wharton, he was a grandson of Thomas Wharton of Kellorth, Orton Parish, Westmorland, England, who emigrated to America before 1689. John Wharton was a saddler by trade and coroner of Chester County, 1730-37.
He seems to have had the advantages of a good education. At the age of twenty he was apprenticed to Reese Meredith, a Philadelphia merchant.
He established himself in business and for a time, in association with Anthony Stocker under the name of Stocker & Wharton, was one of the principal exporters of Philadelphia. His resolute stand against the Stamp Act (1765), his advocacy of non-importation agreements among American merchants, together with his membership on the committee of correspondence and his avowed sympathy for Boston in 1774, definitely identified him with the Whigs. Thereafter his energies were devoted less to the business of a merchant and more to Pennsylvania politics. In the summer of 1774 he was on the committee which attempted unsuccessfully to have the Assembly summoned into session and was a delegate to the provincial convention (July 15). In the summer of 1775 the Assembly placed him on the provincial Committee of Safety. In the work of this body he played an active part until it was superseded by the Council of Safety, which the state convention in July 1776 vested with executive authority until the new constitution was put into operation. Of this body, on Aug. 6, Wharton was chosen president. The failure of Philadelphia to elect members to the Assembly and the Council brought unexpected delay in organizing the state government, the resulting confusion being increased by the British invasion of New Jersey. In this emergency Wharton was in constant touch with Washington, and was the principal figure in ordering the Pennsylvania militia to the commander in chief's assistance, and in encouraging enlistments. The danger from without seems to have turned the tide of opinion toward the constitution, and in February 1777, after months of delay, Philadelphia elected a councilor in the person of Wharton. The government was now organized, the Council and the Assembly united in electing Wharton president of the Supreme Executive Council, and on March 5, 1777, the new president was inaugurated with imposing ceremonies. Commanding the respect of the conservatives, by his energy and patriotism, together with his moderation and tact, he gave dignity to the government and was at the same time acceptable to the back country. Not an ardent constitutionalist, he was desirous of maintaining some semblance of harmony in the state, as his own words show: "if the Government should at this time be overset, it would be attended with the worst consequences not only to this state, but to the whole continent in the opposition we are making to the tyranny of Great Britain. If a better frame of government should be adopted--such a one as would please a much greater majority than the present one, I should be very happy in seeing it brought about". The critical times made the task of president a difficult one, especially in a state so hopelessly divided into factions as was Pennsylvania. During his administration bills of credit were issued to carry on the war, laws passed to punish the disloyal, courts organized, and other measures taken to fit the government to the needs of the time. A unique test of Wharton's own loyalty to the cause was afforded in September 1777, when, backed up by the Assembly, he ordered the removal of twenty Quakers from Philadelphia to Virginia, one of them his own cousin, for their suspected British sympathies, going so far as to disregard writs of habeas corpus from Chief Justice McKean of the state supreme court. He had much to do in building up Philadelphia's defenses during the summer of 1777 and early in 1778, and, at his suggestion, Washington sent army officers into Pennsylvania to replenish the dwindling regiments. In the fall of 1777, when the British seized Philadelphia, the state government moved to Lancaster. There Wharton succumbed unexpectedly the following spring to an attack of quinsy. He maintained a beautiful country home, "Twickenham, " in Cheltenham Township, now Montgomery County.
Wharton was married twice. His first marriage, November 4, 1762, to Susannah, daughter of Thomas Lloyd and Susannah Kearney, allied him with a family long prominent in Pennsylvania politics. After her death he married, December 7, 1774, Elizabeth, daughter of William and Mary Tallman Fishbourne. By his first wife he had five children, and by his second, three.
