Wolcott, Oliver

Biography

Oliver Wolcott [1726-1797] was the youngest son of Roger and Sarah Drake Wolcott. He graduated from Yale in 1747 and began medical studies, which he eventually abandoned for a legal and public career. He held his first position, as sheriff of Litchfield, CT, for twenty years. Also in Litchfield he served as deputy and judge. Wolcott was active in the colonial militia, at the rank of colonel. He was elected as delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775 and, with the exception of 1779, for every year thereafter until 1783. Wolcott departed Philadelphia because of illness shortly before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, leaving his substitute signed in his stead. However on Wolcott's return in October of 1776 he was permitted to sign the Declaration himself. Wolcott later served as governor of Connecticut. In 1755 Wolcott married Laura Collins, with whom he had five children. One of whom, Laura [1794-1870], married George Gibbs [1776-1833], a wealthy merchant and amateur scientist who was the first owner of the "Gibbs-Coolidge" set of presidental portraits painted by Gilbert Stuart and and now in the National Gallery of Art.

Bibliography

1933

DAB, 1943, XX:442-443.

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