William Tilghman (1756–1827), attorney and public official, was a native of Talbot County, Maryland, who relocated to Philadelphia as a youth and was educated there. He graduated from the College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) in 1772. A Loyalist during the American Revolution, Tilghman spent the conflict in seclusion on his family’s estate in Maryland, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1783. He supported the new federal constitution at the state’s ratification convention in 1788, sat for Kent County in the Maryland House of Delegates, 1788–90, and represented the Eastern Shore in the Maryland Senate, 1791–94. Tilghman returned to Philadelphia by 1794 and continued his legal career. President John Adams appointed him a circuit court judge in March 1801, and he served until the office was abolished early the following year. Governor Thomas McKean named Tilghman a judge of the state court of common pleas in 1805 and, a year later, appointed him chief justice of the Pennsylvania supreme court, a position he held for the remainder of his life. He arranged in 1811 to free his slaves and was, in addition, a longtime member of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, a canal enthusiast, a supporter of American manufacturing, and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, 1802–27. In 1805 Tilghman was elected to the American Philosophical Society, an organization that he served as vice president, 1816–25, and president, 1825–27. He died in Philadelphia (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Edward C. Papenfuse and others, eds., A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635–1789 [1979–85], 2:833–4; University of Pennsylvania Catalogue description begins Will J. Maxwell, comp., General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, 1917 description ends , 20; Papenfuse, Maryland Public Officials description begins Edward C. Papenfuse and others, eds., An Historical List of Public Officials of Maryland, 1990– , 1 vol. description ends , 1:519; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 19 Apr. 1805, 5 Jan. 1816, 7 Jan. 1825 [MS in PPAmP]; Peter S. Du Ponceau, Eulogium in commemoration of the honourable William Tilghman, LL.D. [1827]; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 1 May 1827; gravestone inscription in Christ Church Burial Ground, Philadelphia).