Rodney, Caesar

RODNEY, CAESAR. (1728–1784). Signer. Delaware. Born in Kent County, Delaware, on 7 October 1728, Caesar Rodney was high sheriff there from 1755 to 1758. He also served the county as justice of the peace and as and county judge. In 1756 he was named militia captain and held other important public offices. He was elected to the colonial legislature nearly every year from 1758 to 1776, serving as speaker in 1769 and from 1773 to 1776. He was an active delegate to the 1765 Stamp Act Congress in New York City. An early supporter of colonial rights, he was chairman of the Delaware Committee of Safety and was sent to the Continental Congress in 1774 and 1775. He was named a colonel in the Delaware militia in May 1775 and was promoted to brigadier general in the following September. During 1776 he sat in the Continental Congress and was influential in suppressing the Loyalists in Delaware. His hasty return to Congress on 2 July 1776 enabled the Delaware delegation to vote two-to-one for Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence and for the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. A conservative backlash in Delaware excluded Rodney from the state's constitutional convention, the new legislature, and the next Continental Congress.

Rodney turned his attention to military affairs, and was active on the councils of safety and inspection. He helped collect supplies, recruited for General George Washington's army, and in raised militia companies. General William Alexander made him post commandant at Trenton, New Jersey, for a few weeks, and he then served at Morristown, New Jersey, but with Washington's permission returned home in February 1777. During the British advance into his state he commanded the militia, and in September 1777 he was named state major general. In March 1778 he was elected President of Delaware. He held this post until November 1781. Chosen for Congress that year and in 1783, he did not take his seat due to ill health. In 1784 he became speaker of the state senate, which met at his home to save him from having to travel. He died at home on 26 June 1784 from cancer of the face, a condition from which he had suffered for about ten years.

SEE ALSO Declaration of Independence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ryden, George H., ed. Letters to and from Caesar Rodney, 1756–1784. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933.

                            revised by Michael Bellesiles