On September 18, 1733, George Read was born in Cecil County, Maryland. A prominent Delaware lawyer and statesman, Read would become one of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. He also served Delaware in the Continental Congress, helped shape the state’s early government, and represented the state in the first United States Senate.
Exactly 60 years after his birth, on September 18, 1793, Read resigned his U.S. Senate seat. He had accepted appointment as chief justice of Delaware’s Court of Errors and Appeals, the state’s highest court at the time and a predecessor of the modern Delaware Supreme Court. He formally began that office on September 30, 1793.
Read’s resignation left one of Delaware’s two Senate seats open. The Delaware General Assembly did not elect his successor, Henry Latimer, until February 7, 1795—leaving the seat vacant for nearly 17 months.
The coincidence of Read resigning from the Senate on his 60th birthday highlights the breadth of his public career: he helped found the national government, then spent his final years leading Delaware’s highest court. He remained chief justice until his death in 1798.
Signer of the Declaration of Independence, George Read, was born in Maryland on September 18, 1733. On September 18, 1793, his 60th birthday, George resigned as U.S. Senator of Delaware so that he could become Chief Justice of Delaware a few weeks later. With his resignation one of the two senate seats in Delaware remained vacant for nearly a year and a half. Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
