Biography

09/19/1728 - 02/03/1804

John Sellers (Federalist) Delaware, Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Counties 1790-1794

Early Life:

John Sellers, born September 19, 1728, Upper Darby, Chester (now Delaware) County, Province of Pennsylvania, British Colonial America; son of Samuel and Sarah Smith Sellers; engaged, weaving; elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, 1767-1771; appointed, surveyor, engineer, road commissioner; elected, Pennsylvania Constitution Convention of 1789; elected, Pennsylvania State Senate, Delaware County, Philadelphia City, and Philadelphia County, 1790-1794; died, February 2, 1804 (aged 75), Upper Darby, Delaware County, Pennsylvania; interment, Darby Friends Cemetery, Darby, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Early Career:

Appointed, Governor, Council, surveyors. Charged to run a straight line from the middle Ferry on Schuylkill to Lancaster, preparatory to laying out the Strasburg Road, 1773. 

Appointed, commissioners Strasburg Road. Appointed surveying engineers, navigable Union Canal, would be practicable between the waters of the Susquehanna and the Schuylkill.

Professional titles; business ownership; board memberships; local government; club memberships:

Member, American Philosophical Society, 1768.

Pennsylvania Politics:

Elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly Chester County, held at Philadelphia, October 14, 1767.

Elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly Chester County, held at Philadelphia, October 14, 1768.

Elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, Chester County, held at Philadelphia, October 14, 1769.

Elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, Chester County, held at Philadelphia, October 15, 1770.

Elected, Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly Chester County, held at Philadelphia, October 14, 1771.

Elected, Delaware County, Pennsylvania Constitution Convention of 1789.

Elected, Pennsylvania State Senate, original member, Delaware, Philadelphia City and Philadelphia Counties, 1790-1794.

Appointed, Governor Thomas Mifflin, Associate Judge, Delaware County Court, declined to serve.

Legacy:

Grandfather, Samuel Sellers, came from Derbyshire, England, in one of the vessels that came with William Penn.

Born and lived on the same spot where his grandfather had settled, where his father had lived and died; there he died.

Cited:

Cox, Harold. "Senate Members S". Wilkes University Election Statistics Project. Wilkes University.

Votes of Assembly. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series, Vol. VII, np [Harrisburg], 1935, p. 6062.

Votes of Assembly. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series, Vol. VII, np [Harrisburg], 1935, p. 6285.

Votes of Assembly. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series, Vol. VII, np [Harrisburg], 1935, p. 6447.

Votes of Assembly. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series, Vol. VII, np [Harrisburg], 1935, p. 6582.

Votes of Assembly. Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series, Vol. VII, np [Harrisburg], 1935, p. 6723.

A New Nation Votes (tufts.edu)

Village Record, August 11, 1860.

John Sellers (1728-1804) - Find a Grave Memorial