Program

Hometown Heritage®

Subject

People

Location

15518 Solomon Wy, Lewes, DE 19958, USA

Lat/Long

38.766536436141, -75.165819962223

Grant Recipient

Colonel David Hall Chapter NSDAR

John Wiltbank was born in 1731 or 1732. By the onset of the Revolutionary War, he was an established lawyer in Lewes, Delaware, having served as an appointed Justice of the Peace for Sussex County since 1767. In 1774, he was selected as a representative to the Provincial Assembly of the Three Lower Counties. His military involvement began in 1775 when he was commissioned as a Major for the Sussex County Militia, followed by an appointment as its military treasurer in 1776.

In September 1776, Wiltbank served as a Sussex County representative at the Delaware Constitutional Convention, which produced the state’s first governing document. He continued his service in the early state government as a member of the first Council of Delaware, now known as the State Senate, and was also chosen for the Council of Safety that same year.

Wiltbank remained on the Council of Delaware and the Council of Safety until February 1777, at which point he was appointed Chief Justice for the Sussex County Court of Common Pleas and Orphans Court. He held this judicial position until his death in 1792. His will contained a specific provision regarding the enslaved people he owned, stipulating that they be distributed to beneficiaries but granted their freedom upon reaching the age of 34 and ½. He was interred in his family’s burial plot, about 413 feet South East of the marker.