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Thomas
Young
 Dr. Thomas Young (1732-99) of the Hudson Valley, New England, and Philadelphia, lived in Albany during the mid-1760s. In 1766, his was the first signature on the constitution of the Albany Sons of Liberty. He was the older brother of Albany physician Dr. Joseph Young.
Thomas
Young was born in New Windsor (then Ulster County)
in February 1732. He was the oldest son of Scots-Irish
immigrants John and Mary Crawford Young. The precocious
child was apprenticed to a local physician and then
began his own medical practice in Amenia, Dutchess
County in 1753. Shortly thereafter, he married Mary
P. Winegar of Connecticut. The marriage would produce
two sons and four daughters. He was the Connecticut
friend and mentor of Ethan Allen. He was a well-known
Deist, a poet and writer, and liked to play the violin.
In
1760, he invested in a real estate venture in eastern
New York promulgated by John Henry Lydius. Frustrated
by the failure of that project, in 1764 he published
an essay supporting Lydius's attempt to disseminate
land more widely. Later, in October, he removed to
Albany to further pursue that initiative and and
establish a new medical practice. While in Albany,
his son Rasman was baptized at the Lutheran Church.
Profoundly
affected by the Stamp Act controversy, Young quit
Albany and relocated to Boston in 1766. His ascent
as a Revolutionary ideologue is well-documented in
historical scholarship! In 1770, a correspondant
of Sir William Johnson called him, "formerly of Albany . . . now the great hero for liberty."
Sick
in Philadelphia, Dr. Thomas Young died on June 24,
1777. Following his death, his mother and widow removed
to Albany to live with his brother, a politically
active physician himself! ~
~ ~
Sources: The life of Thomas Young is CAP biography
number 6972. This profile is derived chiefly from
family and community-based resources. The most interesting
article on him is David Freeman Hawke, "Dr. Thomas
Young - Eternal Fisher in Troubled Waters: Notes
for a Biography," New-York
Historical Society Quarterly 64:1 (January 1970),
pp.7-29, and the sources cited therin.
See
Joseph Chew to Johnson, June 20, 1770 in Johnson
Papers volume 12, p. 826.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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