William was born to Joseph Shippen (1679–1741, son of Edward Shippen, governor of Pennsylvania) and Abigail Grosse Shippen (1677–1716) at Philadelphia. His father was a prominent merchant. He built a large practice in Philadelphia.[1] In 1735 he married Susannah Harrison.
Shippen joined the vestrymen who founded the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia in 1742. He joined Benjamin Franklin and other civic leaders to found the Public Academy in 1749 and served as one of its trustees. When it merged with another school to become the College of Philadelphia, he served as a trustee of the college from 1755 to 1779; the College is now the University of Pennsylvania.
He was elected to the revived American Philosophical Society in 1767, and served as its vice president from 1768-1769, and from 1779-1801.[2]
While teaching anatomy and surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, one of his pupils was future American president William Henry Harrison.[3] William was known to take corpses from graves at Washington Square for his anatomy lectures, to the extent that African-Americans would stand watch over the graves, and run William and his assistants off.[4]
The Pennsylvania Assembly chose Shippen as a delegate to the Continental Congress on November 20, 1778. He represented his state during congressional sessions in 1779 and 1780, after which he returned to his medical practice.
William remained active well into his eighties. He died at home in Germantown in 1801 and is buried in the First Presbyterian Churchyard at Philadelphia.
Family
His son, William Shippen Jr., followed his father in a medical career and served as Director of Hospitals for the Continental Army. William Jr.'s wife, Alice Lee, was the daughter of Thomas Lee of the Lee family of Virginia; their daughter "Nancy" Shippen (briefly) married Henry Beekman Livingston, the son of Robert Livingston (1718–1775). The family served as guardians of Aaron Burr (born 1756) and his elder sister Sally from 1758 to 1759, after the deaths of both of the Burr children's parents as well as both of their maternal grandparents in 1757 and 1758. In 1759, the Burr children's guardianship passed to their 21-year old maternal uncle, Timothy Edwards.
^Brunton, Deborah. Scottish Universities. John Donald Publishers Ltd. p. 80.
^Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997, III:3, 5, 7, 11-15, 18, 23, 126, 339.
Allen, V R (September 1971). "Medicine in the American Revolution. 3". The Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association. 64 (9): 377–81. PMID4938738.
Bell, W J (July 1964). "The Court Martial Of Dr. William Shippen Jr., 1780". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 19 (3): 218–238. doi:10.1093/jhmas/XIX.3.218. PMID14193224.
Blake, J B (July 1974). "The anatomical lectures of William Shippen, 1766". Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 42 (1): 61–6. PMID4619931.
Jensen, J E (June 1984). "Manuscript notes of William Shippen Jr., MD, found in the Faculty Library". Maryland State Medical Journal. 33 (6): 438–40. PMID6379322.
Olch, P D (1965). "The Morgan-Shippen Controversy: A Commentary On The Birth Of Medical Education In America". Review of Surgery. 22: 1–8. PMID14223403.
Toledo-Pereyra, Luis H (2002). "William Shippen Jr.: pioneer revolutionary war surgeon and father of American anatomy and midwifery". Journal of Investigative Surgery. 15 (4): 183–4. doi:10.1080/08941930290085958. PMID12217182. S2CID38782848.
