24 Facts About William Few

William Few represented the US state of Georgia at the Constitutional Convention and signed the US Constitution.

In time the William Few family achieved a measure of prosperity, emerging as political leaders in rural Orange County.

William Few participated in this training as one of the first men to enlist in the volunteer militia or "minute men" company formed in Hillsborough.

Typically, William Few's unit received its tactical instruction from a veteran of the French and Indian Wars, in this case a former British Army corporal who was hired by the company as its drill sergeant.

William Few joined the Richmond County Regiment, which his older brother Benjamin commanded.

William Few was called to active duty in 1778, when Georgia was faced the threat of invasion by British and Loyalist troops based in Florida.

William Few immediately encountered difficulty in coordinating the efforts of his diverse forces.

The result was a bloody defeat for the Franco-American attackers, but William Few's militiamen participated in a successful rear-guard action that shielded the retreat of the American units.

The western forces, in which William Few's regiment played a prominent role, kept the British from consolidating their position.

William Few emerged as a gifted administrator and logistics expert in this demanding and difficult effort to maintain a viable military force in Georgia.

William Few's growing political prominence and undisputed talent for leadership prompted the state legislature in 1780 to appoint him to represent Georgia in the Continental Congress, which became the Congress of the Confederation after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation a year later.

William Few served in Congress less than a year when, in the wake of General Nathanael Greene's successful effort to drive the British out of most of Georgia, Congress sent him home to help reassemble Georgia's scattered government.

Nevertheless, William Few firmly supported the effort to create a strong national government and worked hard to secure the Continental Congress' approval of the new instrument of government.

William Few participated in the Georgia convention in 1788 that ratified the document.

Georgia promptly selected William Few to serve as one of its original United States senators.

In 1796, William Few was appointed as a federal judge for the Georgia circuit.

William Few was a founding trustee of the University of Georgia in Athens in 1785.

At the urging of his wife, a native New Yorker, William Few left Georgia in 1799 and moved to Manhattan.

William Few served as president of the City Bank of New York, the predecessor of present-day Citigroup, after Samuel Osgood died in August 1813.

William Few stayed in this position until 1817, when Peter Stagg became president.

William Few served as New York's inspector of prisons from 1802 to 1810 and as the United States Commissioner of Loans in 1804.

William Few retired in 1815 to his country home in Fishkill, New York, in Dutchess County where he died on July 16,1828.

William Few died at age 80 in 1828 in Fishkill-on-Hudson, survived by his wife Catherine Nicholson and three daughters.

William Few was buried in the yard of the Reformed Dutch Church of Fishkill Landing.