William Irvine was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

-American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 physician, soldier, and statesman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Carlisle is a borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The name is traditionally pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2010 census, the borough...

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Irvine was born near Enniskillen

Enniskillen

Enniskillen is a town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is located almost exactly in the centre of the county between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,599 in the 2001 Census...

, County Fermanagh

County Fermanagh

Fermanagh District Council is the only one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland that contains all of the county it is named after. The district council also contains a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore and Kilskeery road areas....

 in Ireland. He served as a brigadier general

Brigadier General

Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...

 in the Continental Army

Continental Army

The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...

 and represented Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 in both the Continental Congress

Continental Congress

The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....

 (1787–88) and the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 (1793–1795). During the war, he convinced Colonel William Crawford

William Crawford (soldier)

William Crawford was an American soldier and surveyor who worked as a western land agent for George Washington. Crawford fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War...

 to come out of retirement and lead an expedition

Crawford expedition

The Crawford expedition, also known as the Sandusky expedition and Crawford's Defeat, was a 1782 campaign on the western front of the American Revolutionary War, and one of the final operations of the conflict...

 against Indians in villages along the Sandusky River

Sandusky River

The Sandusky River is a tributary to Lake Erie in north-central Ohio in the United States. It is about long and flows into Lake Erie at Sandusky Bay.-Course:...

, which ended in Crawford's brutal execution. The militia troops went back under the commande of John Rose

Gustave Rosenthal

Gustavus Heinrich de Rosenthal was a Baltic German soldier and nobleman born in Estonia, with the Title of Baron and last name of von Wetter-Rosenthal, a junior line of the von Wetter-Tegenfelden's . He came into conflict with another man and was forced to flee the country after killing him in a...

, a Baltic German officer from Estonia.

He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, where he was buried in a graveyard near Independence Hall

Independence Hall

Independence Hall is the centerpiece of Independence National Historical Park located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, on Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th Streets...

. He was reburied in 1833 at the new Ronaldson's Cemetery. When it was closed in 1950s, the graves of a few Revolutionary War officers such as Irvine were identified by the rector of Old Swedes' and reburied at Gloria Dei Church cemetery

Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church National Historic Site

Gloria Dei Church, founded in 1677, and built between 1697 and 1700, is a historic church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The congregation was originally Swedish Lutheran, but has been Episcopalian since 1845.-Background:...

.

His great-granddaughter Margaret Biddle married Thomas Biddle of the Biddle family

Biddle family

The American Biddle family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania yielded numerous and diverse people of interest down to the present era.William Biddle and Sarah Kempe were Quakers who emigrated from England to America in 1681 in part to avoid religious persecution...

 of Philadelphia.

Irvine was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Irvine v. Sims's Lessee

Irvine v. Sims's Lessee

Sims's Lessee v. Irvine, 3 U.S. 425 , is an early United States Supreme Court case about conflicting land claims. General William Irvine had been granted Montour's Island by Pennsylvania for his service in the American Revolutionary War, but the island was also claimed by Charles Simms of Virginia...

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External links

• Irvine's biographic sketch at the U.S. Congress website
• J. G. Wilson ed., J. Fiske ed., Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography "General William Irvine" (New York: D. Appleton and Company,, 1887–1889).
• ExplorePAHistory.com
• The Irvine-Newbold Family Papers, including correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, records and other materials beginning with General William Irvine and spanning over 200 years of family history, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items...
  
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