 Bedford
was born in 1747 at Philadelphia and reared there. The fifth of
seven children, he was descended from a distinguished family that
originally settled in Jamestown, VA. He usually referred to himself
as Gunning Bedford, Jr., to avoid confusion with his cousin and
contemporary Delaware statesman and soldier, Col. Gunning Bedford.
In 1771 signer Bedford graduated with honors from
the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), where he was a
classmate of James Madison. Apparently while still in school,
Bedford wed Jane B. Parker, who bore at least one daughter. After
reading law with Joseph Read in Philadelphia, Bedford won admittance
to the bar and set up a practice. Subsequently, he moved to Dover
and then to Wilmington. He apparently served in the Continental
Army, possibly as an aide to General Washington.
Following the war, Bedford figured prominently
in the politics of his state and nation. He sat in the legislature,
on the state council, and in the Continental Congress (1783-85). In
the latter year, he was chosen as a delegate to the Annapolis
Convention but for some reason did not attend. From 1784 to 1789 he
was attorney general of Delaware.
Bedford numbered among the more active members
of the Constitutional Convention, and he missed few sessions. A
large and forceful man, he spoke on several occasions and was a
member of the committee that drafted the Great Compromise. An ardent
small-state advocate, he attacked the pretensions of the large
states over the small and warned that the latter might be forced to
seek foreign alliances unless their interests were accommodated. He
attended the Delaware ratifying convention.
For another 2 years, Bedford continued as
Delaware's attorney general. In 1789 Washington designated him as a
federal district judge for his state, an office he was to occupy for
the rest of his life. His only other ventures into national politics
came in 1789 and 1793, as a Federalist presidential elector. In the
main, however, he spent his later years in judicial pursuits, in
aiding Wilmington Academy, in fostering abolitionism, and in
enjoying his Lombardy Hall farm.
Bedford died at the age of 65 in 1812 and was
buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Wilmington. Later,
when the cemetery was abandoned, his body was transferred to the
Masonic Home, on the Lancaster Turnpike in Christiana Hundred, DE. |
