Samuel Rhoads, Congressman, (1711-1784), of Philadelphia, PA: The Back Rhodes of Our Genealogy

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Appletons' cyclopaedia of American biography, Volume 5 By James Grant Wilson, John Fiske, page 230-'1

Samuel Rhoads, member of the Continental congress, b: in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1711 ; d: there, 7 April, 1784. His father, John Rhoads, and grandfather, of the same name, were Quaker colonists from Derbyshire, England. Samuel was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, and became a wealthy builder. In 1741 he was chosen ? member of the city council, but he does not appear to have held office again till 1761, when he was chosen, with Benjamin Franklin, to the assembly, to which he was again elected in 1762-'4 and 1771-4. In 1761 he was chosen by the assembly a commissioner to attend a noted conference with the western Indians and the Six Nations at Lancaster, Pa., and in 1774 he was elected by the assembly a delegate to the Continental congress. During this year he Was also elected mayor of Philadelphia. He was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania hospital, and became a member of its first board of managers, which post he filled until his death, a period of thirty years. He was one of the early members of the American philosophical society, and for many years a director of the Philadelphia library.