John Sanderson (ca. 1783–1844), educator and author, was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and schooled privately by tutors. Although he moved to Philadelphia during the first decade of the nineteenth century in order to study law, by 1811 he had joined John T. Carré in a pedagogical partnership that would last until at least 1822. When Sanderson was not teaching classics, the English language, and French literature, he wrote prolifically for both newspapers and periodicals. In addition, between 1820 and 1822 he edited and saw into print the first two volumes of the Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, a project that was completed by others later that decade and totaled nine volumes (Philadelphia, 1820–27; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 5 [no. 152]). Sanderson took a break from teaching in 1835 and went on a year-long trip to France. Drawing on this sojourn, he produced Sketches of Paris: in Familiar Letters to His Friends (1838), which went through several editions over the next decade under the variant title of The American in Paris. After his return from Europe, Sanderson was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1840 and taught Greek, Latin, English, and belles lettres at the Central High School of Philadelphia from the same year until his death in that city (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Peter S. Du Ponceau to TJ, 3 Jan. 1821; Clermont Seminary. … Disciplinary Rules to be strictly observed in Said Seminary [Philadelphia, 1811]; Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 8 Sept. 1817; The Philadelphia Directory and Register, for 1822 [Philadelphia, 1822]; Robert Desilver, The Philadelphia Index, or Directory, for 1823 [(Philadelphia, 1823)]; Desilver’s Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide, 1830 [1830], 168; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 17 July 1840 [MS in PPAmP]; Franklin Spencer Edmonds, History of the Central High School of Philadelphia [1902], 53–4; Philadelphia North American and Daily Advertiser, 6 Apr. 1844; gravestone inscription in Presbyterian Cemetery, Pottsville, Pa.).

Sanderson’s profiles of George wythe and John hancock appeared in the second and first volumes, respectively, of the Biography of the Signers.