Talk:John Witherspoon

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Franklin praise?[edit]

What evidence supports the claim that Benjamin Franklin praised John Witherspoon?

I have waited a sufficient length of time for any one to offer evidence that Benjamin Franklin praised John Witherspoon. No one has offered any such evidence. I spent several years researching the life of Witherspoon, and I never found evidence of Franklin having praised him. I have therefore amended the article accordingly. I would be happy to hear from anybody on this matter. 

      You have quite a lot of free time on your hand, don't you...

Other "onlys"[edit]

Witherspoon was the only clergyman among the signers. Should we also add that he was the only educator, the only native of Scotland, and the only one who was well known in Britain before emigrating? Dynzmoar 10:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Educator, perhaps; although teaching for a year in young adulthood was fairly common, so it may not be true (and there's Jefferson and UVa). The others; probably not. But we should keep clergyman. Septentrionalis 01:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

John in fact was an Educator his entire life. He regularly taught courses at The College of New Jersey.Signersbuff (talk) 01:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Descendants[edit]

Reese Witherspoon is a descendant of John Witherspoon, is the actor John Witherspoon a descendant of slaves owned by the Witherspoons? Or are there other, non related Witherspoon families from which he may have been descended?

I regularly come to this page and change the assertion made by friends or supporters of Reese that she is a descendant of John Witherspoon, the Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Someone always changes the non-calim back to a claim. Repeated attempts to contact Reeses to verify the claim have been met by silence. She may be a descendant of a John Witherspoon, but as far as we can tell, she is not a descendant of John, the Signer. I have a pretty complete family tree of the Signer's Descendants and she is not on that tree. I welcome the opportunity to be proven incorrect. Jim Alexander, GGGGGrandson of John, the Signer. Signersbuff (talk) 02:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]


My name is Brooke Ashley McAvoy. My father's mother was Francis Witherspoon. My father often spoke of our great-great-great-great grandfather John Witherspoon while I was growing up. My father owns the family Bible that belonged to John Witherspoon. I have a nine year old daughter, Cassady, and a three month old son named Tristan. We would love to hear from any other decendents. We are extremely proud of our herritage and will never forget our ancestors. Please feel free to contact me at mccalljett@yahoo.com.

Go ahead and alter the page if you like, however the fact remains that everyone cannot claim to be a descendant of this specific Witherspoon. Gautam Discuss 22:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've read somewhere that there were no surviving males to carry on John Witherspoon's family line past his son. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.125.120.142 (talk) 05:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 17:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

legacy: "limited government philosophy"?[edit]

I want to question the following sentence in the "Legacy" section: "The limited-government philosophy of most of these men was due in large measure to Witherspoon's influence." Is this referring to Witherspoon's views concerning the government of the Presbyterian Church or the government of the United States? The rest of the article makes no mention of Witherspoon's philosophy of government, so I will suggest that either some supporting discussion be offered or that this sentence be deleted. Other Choices (talk) 03:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SS John Witherspoon[edit]

She was a Liberty Ship, though I know very little about her career. The article refers to her being part of Convoy PQ17, but doesnt clarify that she was specifically one of the 24 out of 35 ships sunk in that convoy. She is mentioned as such in [PQ17 article]. Also, strictly speaking, she was sunk east and south of Bear Island, though I don't know the precise co-ordinates; but she was defnitely in the Barents Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean.Fleeming (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New book[edit]

John Witherspoon's American Revolution by Gideon Mailer, University of North Carolina Press, 2017 Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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President of Princeton University in Infobox[edit]

I added information describing that John Witherspoon was the 6th President of Princeton University to the infobox and it was reverted by FlightTime. Why do we need consensus for this? The article already mentions that he is the 6th President of Princeton. What is the disagreement for this edit? Agpagpagp (talk) 18:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Agpagpagp: My concern is that you changed the infobox from Infobox person to Infobox officeholder, this change (IMO) should be discussed by editors who regularly watch this page. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Consensus on Infobox Changes[edit]

I think we should change the infobox to from Infobox person to Infobox officeholder to match the other Presidents of Princeton University (only two other Princeton Presidents are Infobox person, the other 17 are Infobox officeholder). This would look like this. Thoughts? Agpagpagp (talk) 19:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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I have just modified one external link on John Witherspoon. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

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Legacy[edit]

The legacy section seems to be just a giant quote from a dissertation, and much of the information doesn’t really belong in that part of the article. 140.180.240.170 (talk) 21:44, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notability[edit]

An inventory of Witherspoon's possessions taken at his death included "two slaves... valued at a hundred dollars each".

Not notable.

Witherspoon… lectured against the abolition of slavery.

A little detail about the content of his lectures, and where they were delivered, might justify the inclusion of this statement. Otherwise it’s just a diversity rubber-stamp. It is simply not notable, in itself, that people of that time who could afford slaves would own them. Valetude (talk) 08:19, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Hutcheson[edit]

This article currently says both that he opposed the philosophical influence of Francis Hutcheson, and that he was influenced by the ethical philosophy of Francis Hutcheson. These claims are by no means mutually exclusive and may both be accurate. However, they deserve further elaboration. Daask (talk) 11:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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