Jacob Broom

Jacob Broom (October 17, 1752 – April 25, 1810) was an American Founding Father, businessman, and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. Born in New Castle County in the British colony of Delaware, he was the son of a blacksmith and farmer of Swedish descent and an English Quaker mother, and he grew up in a community shaped by both Swedish and English colonial traditions. He became closely associated with Wilmington and the Brandywine region, where he would later build his home and develop extensive business interests. Over the course of his life he emerged as a prominent local leader, a committed advocate of a strong national government, and a key participant in the framing of the United States Constitution. He was the father of Congressman James M. Broom and grandfather of Congressman Jacob Broom, extending his family’s involvement in American public life into the next generations.

Broom’s early education and training prepared him for a career that combined public service with commercial enterprise. As a young man he worked as a surveyor and scrivener, occupations that brought him into contact with landowners, merchants, and public officials in and around Wilmington. These roles helped establish his reputation for reliability and practical judgment. His Quaker background and ties to the local Swedish Lutheran community also shaped his civic outlook, fostering a concern for orderly government, community improvement, and religious and educational institutions that would remain evident throughout his life.

By the time of the American Revolution, Broom had become active in local affairs and in the emerging political life of Delaware. He served in the Delaware General Assembly, participating in the governance of the new state during and after the struggle for independence. A dedicated supporter of a strong central government, he was appointed as a commissioner to the Annapolis Convention in 1786, although he did not attend. His views on national unity and effective federal authority were already well formed. When George Washington visited Wilmington in 1783, Broom urged him to “contribute your advice and influence to promote that harmony and union of our infant governments which are so essential to the permanent establishment of our freedom, happiness, and prosperity,” a statement that reflected his deep concern for the cohesion and stability of the new republic.

Broom carried these convictions with him to Philadelphia as a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he was a signer of the United States Constitution. At the Convention he consistently supported measures designed to create a powerful national government responsive to the needs of the states. He favored a nine-year term limit for members of the Senate, where the states would be equally represented, and he advocated that state legislatures pay their representatives in Congress while granting Congress the power to veto state laws. He also supported vesting state legislatures with the power to select presidential electors and proposed that the president hold office for life, reflecting his preference for stability and continuity in the executive branch. Broom faithfully attended the sessions in Philadelphia and spoke out several times on issues he considered crucial, though he generally left extended oratory to more prominent delegates. Georgia delegate William Pierce described him as “a plain good Man, with some abilities, but nothing to render him conspicuous. He is silent in public, but cheerful and conversable in private,” a contemporary portrait that underscores his steady but understated role in the Convention’s work.

After the Constitutional Convention, Broom returned to Wilmington and focused primarily on local government and business. In 1790 he became Wilmington’s first postmaster, a position that placed him at the center of the community’s communications and commercial life. In 1795 he built a home near Brandywine Creek on the outskirts of the city, anchoring his family and enterprises in an area that was rapidly becoming an industrial corridor. He served for many years in Wilmington’s municipal government and chaired the board of directors of Wilmington’s Delaware Bank, helping to shape the city’s financial and civic development. His business interests were wide-ranging: he operated a cotton mill and a machine shop that produced and repaired mill machinery, and he engaged in an unsuccessful scheme to mine bog iron ore. In 1802 he sold his mill property along the Brandywine, which subsequently became the center of the DuPont manufacturing empire, linking his earlier industrial efforts to one of the most significant corporate enterprises in American history.

In addition to his industrial and financial pursuits, Broom was deeply interested in internal improvements and community development. He advocated for toll roads, canals, and bridges that would facilitate commerce and bind together the region’s economy, and a letter to his son James in 1794 touches on several of these projects and concerns. He devoted time and resources to philanthropic and religious activities, maintaining a long-standing affiliation with the Old Academy in Wilmington. He played a key role in its reorganization into the College of Wilmington and served on the college’s first Board of Trustees, reflecting his commitment to higher education and civic leadership. He was also a lay leader of the Old Swedes Church, one of the oldest churches in the region, where he took an active part in the religious life of his community.

Although Jacob Broom himself did not serve in the United States Congress, his family became closely associated with national legislative service. His son, James M. Broom, later served as a Congressman, and his grandson, also named Jacob Broom, served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the American Party representing Pennsylvania. During that single term in office, the younger Jacob Broom contributed to the legislative process at a significant period in American history, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents. Through these descendants, the elder Broom’s legacy of public service extended from the founding era into the antebellum period.

Jacob Broom died on April 25, 1810, while on a business trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was buried in the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia, a resting place shared by many notable figures of the Revolutionary generation. His life encompassed the transition from colonial subject to citizen of a new republic, and through his work as a local official, businessman, constitutional delegate, and community leader, he left a lasting imprint on Wilmington, Delaware, and the early political development of the United States.