Gunning Bedford Jr.

Gunning Bedford Jr. (1747 – March 30, 1812) was an American Founding Father, delegate to the Congress of the Confederation (Continental Congress), Attorney General of Delaware, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 which drafted the United States Constitution, a signer of the United States Constitution, and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

Education and career

Bedford was born in 1747, in Philadelphia, Province of Pennsylvania, British America, the fifth of eleven children to a wealthy family. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) on September 25, 1771, with honors, as a classmate of James Madison.

On July 17, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved to elect Bedford to deputy-muster-general for New York in the Continental Army, during the American Revolutionary War. On February 28, 1776, he was assigned to the northern army in Canada to muster troops there monthly.

He was a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation from 1783 to 1785.

He was a member of the Delaware convention which ratified the Constitution in 1787. Bedford was nominated by President George Washington on September 24, 1789, to the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, to a new seat authorized by .

Family

Bedford was a cousin of Gunning Bedford Sr., a Governor of Delaware.

Death and legacy Gunning Bedford Jr. Memorial at Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery

He died in office as a federal judge on March 30, 1812. He was interred first in the Presbyterian Cemetery in Wilmington. His remains were moved to the Masonic Home Cemetery at Christiana, Delaware. The cemetery is now the location of the Wilmington Institute Library.