Hugh Williamson was born in Pennsylvania in 1735 and educated at the College of Philadelphia, where he later taught mathematics, before studying medicine in Edinburgh and practicing as a physician. A man of wide scientific interests, he corresponded with Benjamin Franklin on electricity and other subjects.
Settling in North Carolina, he served as a surgeon during the Revolution and represented the state in the Continental Congress and at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he was an active participant and a signer of the Constitution. He later served in the first federal Congress and devoted his retirement to scientific and historical writing. He died in 1819.