 He was educated at the Philadelphia Academy and then in the first class of the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania), where he also worked as a tutor of Greek and Latin.After graduating as valedictorian in 1757, he studied briefly at Cambridge University before being ordained an Anglican clergyman by the Bishop of London and returning to the colonies.In 1759 he married Elizabeth Hopkinson, sister of Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.