William Tilghman
Date of Birth : Aug 12, 1756
Date of Death : Apr 30, 1827
Birth Place : Talbot County
William Tilghman was an American lawyer, politician, jurist and statesman from Maryland. He served one term each as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and as a state senator, before moving in 1793 to Philadelphia, where he had gone to college. He continued to hold his property of plantation and slaves in Maryland.
After some years of private practice, he was appointed as a justice to the Philadelphia and state courts. In 1805, he was named as Chief Justice on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, where he served from 1806 to his death in 1827. In 1811, when Tilghman ran for Governor of Pennsylvania, which had abolished slavery in 1780, he began to emancipate his slaves. He was not elected.