DeWitt Clinton

(March 2, 1769 - February 11, 1828)

De Witt Clinton was born March 2, 1769 in Little Britain, New York at the family residence in a part of Ulster County now included in Orange County. He attended Princeton. He was the first matriculated student of the revived institution, which now bore the name of Columbia College, receiving his degree at the first Commencement after the Revolution. He was studying law at the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and anxiously watched the debates at the session of the Ratifying Convention at Poughkeepsie, which his uncle, the Governor, headed. Clinton was elected a State senator for New York in 1805. He ran for President but was defeated by James Madison.

He helped create the public school system in New York and helped convince people to build the Erie Canal.