Thomas T. Hewson (1773-1848) was born in London. After his family moved to Philadelphia in 1786, Hewson attended the forerunner of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1789, and then trained as a doctor in Philadelphia, London, and Edinburgh. He returned to Philadelphia in 1800, where he enjoyed a prestigious and public-spirited career, serving at different times as a physician or officer at such institutions as the Philadelphia Dispensary, the almshouse, the Humane Society, a prison, the Pennsylvania Hospital, and the Philadelphia College of Physicians, of which he was president from 1835 until his death. He also took a lead role in bringing The Pharmacopœia of the United States of America, the first American work of its kind, to its initial publication in 1820 and in subsequently revising the work. Elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 1801, he served as secretary from 1803 to 1817 and 1821 to 1823, and as curator from 1817 to 1821 (Franklin Bache, An Obituary Notice of Thomas T. Hewson, M.D., Late President of the Philadelphia College of Physicians [Philadelphia, 1850]; Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 2 Jan. 1804; Philadelphia United States Gazette, 12 Mch. 1807; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004- , 11 vols. description ends , 1:609n).

On this afternoon, the APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends held the late meeting at which the body retained TJ as president. Robert Patterson, Caspar Wistar, and Benjamin Smith Barton remained vice presidents (APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Proceedings, 22, pt. 3 [1884], 345-6).