William Paterson was an American politician and jurist. He was born in 1745 and died in 1806. He was a New Jersey Delegate to the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1781. He was a member of the Federal Convention of 1787, and proposed the preservation of State sovereignty, in what was called the New Jersey Plan. He was a US Senator from 1789 to 1790, Governor of New Jersey from 1791 to 1793, and a Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1793 to 1806. Research William Paterson