On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Assembly selected eight men to serve as Delegates to the First Continental Congress — John Dickinson, Joseph Galloway, Thomas Mifflin, George Ross, John Morton, Edward Biddle, Samuel Rhoads, and Charles Humphreys. Unlike the delegations of most of the other colonies, which were filled with ardent Patriots, the Pennsylvania delegation was balanced between radicals and conservatives. Nevertheless all but two of these men would later hold important posts in the national and Pennsylvania governments and thus can be considered Founding Fathers.
Galloway would soon defect to the British. Although he did not join the British, as a Quaker and a pacifist, Humphreys could not support Independence and knew it would prolong the War. So Humphreys would resign from the Second Continental Congress and sit out the Revolution.