Benjamin Say (August 28, 1755 – April 23, 1813) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Benjamin Say was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, to Thomas (1709–1796) and Rebekah Atkinson Budd Say (1716–1795), He married Ann Bartram Bonsall (1759–1793) on Oct. 1, 1776, a granddaughter of naturalist John Bartram. Their son

Thomas Say Thomas Say (June 27, 1787 – October 10, 1834) was an American entomologist, conchologist, and herpetologist. His studies of insects and shells, numerous contributions to scientific journals, and scientific expeditions to Florida, Georgia, the R ...

(1787–1835) became a pioneering entomologist. Say graduated from the medical department of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

in 1780 and practiced in that city. He also worked as an

apothecary ''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Amer ...

. He served in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, and was a fellow of the

College of Physicians of Philadelphia The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is the oldest private medical society in the United States. Founded in 1787 by 24 Philadelphia physicians "to advance the Science of Medicine, and thereby lessen human misery, by investigating the disease ...

, of which he was one of the founders in 1787, and was treasurer from 1791 to 1809. He was a member of the

Pennsylvania Prison Society The Pennsylvania Prison Society is an advocacy group that supports prisoners, formerly incarcerated individuals and their families. It is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. History It was founded in 1787 as the Philadelphia Society for ...

and president of the Pennsylvania Humane Society. He was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate. Say was elected as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...

to the Tenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph Clay. He was reelected to the

Eleventh In music or music theory, an eleventh is the note eleven scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the eleventh. The interval can be also described as a compound fourth, spanning an octave plus a ...

Congress and served until his resignation in June 1809. He died in Philadelphia in 1813. He had a grand house to the southwest of the then-borders of Philadelphia. Dubbed "The Cliffs", it overlooked the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river running northwest to southeast in eastern Pennsylvania. The river was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal, and several of its tributaries drain major parts of Pennsylvania's Coal Region. It f ...

near Gray's Ferry, just upriver from the Bartram estate.

Notes

Sources

The Political GraveyardPlan of Say Burial Ground
at 3rd and Arch Streets in Philadelphia
Watercolor of grave marker
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni Politicians from Philadelphia Pennsylvania state senators 1755 births 1813 deaths People of colonial Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania {{Pennsylvania-Representative-stub