President of the Continental Congress
The President of the Continental Congress was the presiding officer of the Continental Congress, the convention of delegates that emerged as the first national government of the United States during the American Revolution. The president was a delegate elected by the other delegates to preside over meetings of Congress. He was not the equivalent of a modern head of state, and had less authority than the governors of the individual colonies or states.
The first President of Congress was Peyton Randolph, who was elected on September 5 1774. The term of the last president, Cyrus Griffin, ended on November 2 1788. Because of the limited role of the office, the Presidents of Congress are among the lesser known leaders of the American Revolution. The best-known President of Congress is John Hancock, remembered for his large, bold signature on the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted and signed during his presidency.
Title and role
The presiding officer of the Continental Congress was usually styled "President of the Congress" or "President of Congress".[Edward Cody Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: Norton, 1941), 502–3.] Thereafter, the president was occasionally referred to as the "President of the United States in Congress Assembled", although "President of the Congress" continued to be used in most official documents.
The office of President of Congress had little relationship to the later office of President of the United States, beyond a similarity of name. As historian Edmund Burnett wrote:
 he President of the United States is scarcely in any sense the successor of the presidents of the old Congress. The presidents of Congress were almost solely presiding officers, possessing scarcely a shred of executive or administrative functions; whereas the President of the United States is almost solely an executive officer, with no presiding duties at all. Barring a likeness in social and diplomatic precedence, the two offices are identical only in the possession of the same title.[Burnett, Continental Congress, 34.]
List of presidents
The following men served as the president of the First Continental Congress:
 Peyton Randolph (September 5, 1774 October 21, 1774)
Henry Middleton (October 22, 1774 October 26, 1774)
The following men served as the president of the Second Continental Congress:
Peyton Randolph (May 10, 1775 May 23, 1775)
John Hancock (May 24, 1775 October 31, 1777)
Henry Laurens (November 1, 1777 December 9, 1778)
John Jay (December 10, 1778 September 27, 1779)
Samuel Huntington (September 28, 1779 March 1, 1781)
When the Articles of Confederation were ratified on March 1, 1781, no elections were held or even discussed for a selecting a new president.[Burnett, Continental Congress, 503.] Instead, Samuel Huntington continued to serve as President of Congress until he asked to be relieved due to ill health on July 6 1781.
The following men served as President of Congress after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation:
Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781 July 9, 1781)
Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781 November 4, 1781)
John Hanson (November 5, 1781 November 3, 1782)
Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782 November 2, 1783)
Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783 October 31, 1784)
Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784 November 6, 1785)
John Hancock (November 23, 1785 June 5, 1786) Due to Hancock's failing health, he did not report to Congress, and the following two chairmen acted as president in his stead:
* David Ramsay (November 23, 1785 May 12, 1786)
* Nathaniel Gorham (May 15, 1786 June 5, 1786)
Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786 November 5, 1786)
Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787 November 4, 1787)
Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788 March 4, 1789)
External links
"First in Piece", article on snopes.com that discounts the myth that John Hanson was the first President of the United States. Presidents of Congress have been forgotten, the authors say, because "the office wasn't one of much importance."
Presidents of the Continental Congress at Archontology.org
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