Philip Livingston

Philip Livingston (January 15, 1716 – June 12, 1778) was an American merchant, politician and slave trader from New York City. He represented New York at the October 1774 First Continental Congress, where he favored imposing economic sanctions upon Great Britain as a way of pressuring the British Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts. Livingston was also a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1778, and signed the Declaration of Independence, thus becoming one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Early life Livingston was born in Albany, New York, on January 15, 1716, the fourth surviving son of Philip Livingston (1686–1749), 2nd Lord of the Manor, and Catherine Van Brugh Livingston, the daughter of Albany Mayor Pieter Van Brugh. Along with his brother, William Livingston (1723–1790), he grew up in the Albany area, dividing his time between his father's Albany townhouse and the manor house in Linlithgo, at the junction of the Roeliff Jansen Kill and the Hudson River. Mercantile career Livingston graduated from Yale College in 1737 and returned to Albany to undergo a mercantile apprenticeship under his father. Through his father's influence, he obtained clerkships in Albany's municipal government. Livingston subsequently moved to New York City and pursued a career in the import business, trading with the British West Indies. During King George's War, Livingston made a fortune provisioning British forces and engaging in privateering. He also speculated heavily in real estate and the slave trade, financing at least fifteen slave-trading voyages, which transported hundreds of enslaved Africans to New York.