Clymer was born in Philadelphia, on 16 March 1739, and orphaned when only a year old. William Coleman, a mercantile uncle, reared, the young orphan, to become a very successful businessman.
As a young Philadelphia merchant, George was very sensitive to the injustice of the Tea Act and The Stamp Act, which many colonists viewed as a tax imposed by a parliament in which they had no representation and hence no voice to oppose it. “No taxation without representation” was the hue and cry of the time and George Clymer was vocal and active in that response.
He became a member of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety in 1773, and was elected to the Continental Congress in 1776. In his first term, he served on many committees and inspected the northern army on behalf of congress. He was one of the first to advocate complete independence from Britten, and voted for and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
During the part of the struggle, when Philadelphia was under threat of occupation and most of congress took refuge in Baltimore, Clymer along with George Walton and Robert Morris stayed so that the business of this, not yet a nation, could continue.
During a British raid George Clymer and his family hid in the woods while their house was pillaged and destroyed.
In 1780 and again in 1784 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature, represented his state at the Constitutional Convention, and became one of only six men to have signed both The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
Continuing his political service, he was elected to the first US Congress.
In addition George Clymer was the first President of the Philadelphia Bank, the first president of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and vice-president of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society. He also donated the land that became the county seat of Indiana County PA.
He gave his home, Summerseat, to his son and it is there that he passed in to history in January of 1813. He was interred across the river at the Trenton Friends Meeting House grounds.