REFN: 54c
Elias Boudinot studied at the Academy of Philadelphia and interned at law under
the tutelage of his brother-in-law, Richard Stockton of Princeton. He was
admitted to the New Jersey bar at age twenty. He attained prominence in his
profession rapidly. When war broke out, he was made chairman of the Committee
of Safety at Elizabethtown, and soon thereafter was Delegate to the Provincial
Congress. In 1775 he secretly sent several desperately needed casks of
gunpowder to Washington at Cambridge, and in 1777 was appointed Colonel and
Commissary-General of Prisoners charged with aid to and exchange of the hapless
patriots interned by the British in pestilent prison-ships in New York harbor,
and had additional intelligence duties which brought him into intimate
personal relations with Gen. Washington. In 1778, he was elected as delegate
from New Jersey to the Continental Congress, and was President of that body at
the cessation of hostilities. He signed the Treaty of Paris in the capacity of
chief-executive of the new republic. He was elected a Representative from New
Jersey to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd US Congresses, adhering to the Federalist Party.
In 1795, President Washington appointed him Director of the Mint in
Philadelphia, serving until 1805. The first full series of US currency was
minted during his tenure. He then retired from public office and retired to
his mansion in Burlington (still standing at least in 1955). Thereafter he
devoted himself to religious studies (he was a Presbyterian) and worked for his
favorite charities, the American Bible Society (of which he was the first
President), the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and the
Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. He supported the cause of
the Cherokees and other southern tribes. Boudinot was from 1772 an original
trustee of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) and donated a Cabinet of
Natural History. He was survived by a daughter, and most of his estate went to
charity. His voluminous correspondance with luminaries of the era survives in
an edition by Jane Boudinot. His journal of an overland journey from Burlington
to Boston was published by Princeton U. Library, 1955. The University
conserves many mementos from his estate.

• Married: 1762 in Princeton,NJ

1. Suzanne Vergereau BOUDINOT b: 1764 in Elizabeth,,NJ