SS Peter Minuit was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Peter Minuit, a Walloon from Tournai, in present-day Belgium. He was the 3rd Director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New Netherland. He founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in 1638. Minuit is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch from the Lenape Native Americans. Manhattan later became the site of the Dutch city of New Amsterdam, and the borough of Manhattan of modern-day New York City.
SS Eleazar Wheelock was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Eleazar Wheelock, an American Congregational minister, orator, and educator in Lebanon, Connecticut, for 35 years before founding Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Before founding Dartmouth, Wheelock, in 1754, had founded and run the Moor's Charity School in Connecticut, to educate Native Americans.
SS Thomas Ruffin was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Thomas Ruffin, an American jurist and Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1829 to 1852 and again from 1858 to 1859. He was Chief Justice of that Court from 1833 to 1852.
SS William Johnson was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after William Johnson, a state legislator and judge in South Carolina, and an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1804 to his death in 1834.
SS Theodore Foster was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Theodore Foster, an American lawyer and politician from Rhode Island. He was a member of the Federalist Party and later the National Republican Party. He served as one of the first two United States senators from Rhode Island and served as Dean of the United States Senate.
SS James Gunn was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after James Gunn, a delegate to the Continental Congress and a United States senator from Georgia.
SS Reverdy Johnson was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Reverdy Johnson, a statesman and jurist from Maryland. From 1845 to 1849, Johnson represented Maryland in the United States Senate as a Whig. From March 1849 until July 1850, Johnson was Attorney General of the United States under President Zachary Taylor. He represented the slave-owning defendant in the controversial 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford. In 1865, he defended Mary Surratt before a military tribunal. From 14 September 1868 until 13 May 1869, he served as the ambassador to the United Kingdom.
SS Richard H. Alvey was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Richard H. Alvey, an American jurist who served as Chief Judge of the supreme court of the State of Maryland, the Maryland Court of Appeals and subsequently served as the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.
SS John P. Poe was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after John P. Poe, the Attorney General of Maryland, from 1891 to 1895. Poe was the nephew of the poet Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a lawyer as well as a leading member of the Maryland Democratic Party, and served as Dean of the University of Maryland School of Law.
SS Bernard Carter was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Bernard Carter, a lawyer, professor, and politician from Maryland. Carter was corporate attorney in Baltimore and a professor at the University of Maryland.
SS William Tilghman was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after William Tilghman, the Chief United States circuit judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Third Circuit and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
SS Jared Ingersoll was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Jared Ingersoll, an American Founding Father, lawyer, and statesman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signatory of the Constitution of the United States.
SS William Paca was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after William Paca, a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence from Maryland, a delegate to the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress from Maryland, Governor of Maryland and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
SS John Walker was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after John Walker, a representative of the House of Burgesses. He was in the Continental Army, serving in 1777 as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, holding the rank of colonel. In 1780, he was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He then studied law. When William Grayson died in 1790, Walker was appointed to the United States Senate to serve from March 31 to November 9.
SS Jonathan Elmer was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Jonathan Elmer, an American politician and delegate to the Continental Congress three times: 1777 to 1778, 1781 to 1783, and 1787 to 1788. In 1780 and 1784 he represented Cumberland County in the New Jersey Legislative Council. The College of New Jersey made Elmer a trustee in 1782. He served in that position until 1795. The New Jersey Legislature appointed Elmer to the United States Senate for the term of 4 March 1789 to 3 March 1791.
SS Ralph Izard was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Ralph Izard, an American politician. He was appointed commissioner to the Court of Tuscany by the Continental Congress in 1776, but was recalled in 1779. He returned to America in 1780, and pledged his large estate in South Carolina, for the payment of war ships to be used in the American Revolutionary War. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783. In 1788, he was elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1789, to March 4, 1795, serving as President pro tempore of the United States Senate during the Third Congress.
SS James Caldwell was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after James Caldwell, a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent part in the American Revolution. Caldwell was an active partisan on the side of the Patriots, and was known as the "Fighting Parson". He was killed on 24 November 1781, by an American sentry in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, when he refused to have a package inspected. The sentry, James Morgan, was hanged for murder on 29 January 1782 in Westfield, New Jersey, amid rumors that he had been bribed to kill the chaplain.
SS Nicholas Biddle was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Nicholas Biddle, an American financier who served as the third and last president of the Second Bank of the United States. He also served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. He is best known for his role in the Bank War.
SS Grace Abbott was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Grace Abbott, an American social worker who specifically worked in improving the rights of immigrants and advancing child welfare, especially the regulation of child labor.
SS Cardinal Gibbons was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Cardinal Gibbons, an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Apostolic Vicar of North Carolina from 1868 to 1872, Bishop of Richmond from 1872 to 1877, and as ninth Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877 until his death in 1921. Gibbons was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1886.
United States
