Gouverneur Morris (January 31, 1752 – November 6, 1816) was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. A signatory to the Articles of Confederation, Morris was also an author of large sections of the Constitution of the United States and one of its signers. He is widely credited as the author of the document’s preamble, and has been called the “Penman of the Constitution.”
In 1780, Morris’s left leg was shattered and replaced with a wooden pegleg. Morris’s public account for the loss of his leg was that it happened in a carriage accident, but there is evidence that this was a false story concocted to cover for a dalliance with a woman, during which he jumped from a window to escape a jealous husband. Morris was well-known throughout much of his life for having many affairs, with both married and unmarried women, and he recorded many of these adventures and misadventures in his diary.
