 James Wilson, Beard notes, "developed a lucrative practice at Carlisle" before becoming "one of the directors of the Bank of North America on its incorporation in 1781". A member of the Georgia Land Company, Wilson "held shares to the amount of at least one million acres". John Blair was "one of the most respectable men in Virginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune". Another source notes that Blair "was a member of a prominent Virginia family. His father served on the Virginia Council and was for a time acting Royal governor. His granduncle, James Blair, was founder and first president of the College of William and Mary." John Rutledge was elected Governor of South Carolina at a time when the Constitution of that state set, as a qualification for the office, ownership of "a settled plantation or freehold ... of the value of at least ten thousand pounds currency, clear of debt". Oliver Ellsworth "rose rapidly to wealth and power in the bar of his native state" with "earnings ... unrivalled in his own day and unexampled in the history of the colony", developing "a fortune which for the times and the country was quite uncommonly large". Bushrod Washington was the nephew of George Washington, who was at the time of the younger Washington's appointment the immediate past President of the United States and one of the wealthiest men in the country.
