William Irvine, born near Enniskillen, Ireland, on the 3d of November,
1741, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Though preferring a
military career, he adopted the medical profession to gratify the
wishes of his parents. During the latter part of the Seven Years War
between England and France, he served as surgeon on board a British
man-of-war, and shortly before the restoration of peace, he resigned
his commission, and coming to America in 1764, settled at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, where he soon acquired a great reputation and a large
practice. Warm-hearted and impulsive, at the opening of the Revolution
he adopted the cause of the colonists as his own, and after serving
in the Pennsylvania Convention, he was commissioned in 1776 to raise
a regiment in that State. At the head of these troops, he took part
in the Canadian expedition of that year, and being taken prisoner,
was detained for many months. He was captured a second time at the
battle of Chestnut Hill, New Jersey, in December, 1777. On the 12th of
May, 1779, Congress conferred on him the rank of brigadier-general.
From 1782 until the close of the war, he commanded at Fort Pitt,--an
important post defending the Western frontier, then threatened by
British and Indians. In 1785, he was appointed an agent to examine the
public lands, and to him was intrusted the administration of an act for
distributing the donation lands that had been promised to the troops
of the Commonwealth. Appreciating the advantage to Pennsylvania of
having an outlet on Lake Erie, he suggested the purchase of that tract
of land known as “the triangle.” From 1785 to 1795, he filled various
civil and military offices of responsibility. Being sent to treat with
those connected with the Whiskey Insurgents, and failing to quiet them
by arguments, he was given command of the Pennsylvania Militia to carry
out the vigorous measures afterward adopted to reduce them to order.
In 1795, he settled in Philadelphia, held the position of intendant of
military stores, and was president of the Pennsylvania Society of the
Cincinnati until his death on the 9th of July, 1804.