Born in Philadelphia in 1740, Elias Boudinot served as a delegate from New Jersey to the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1778, and again from 1781 to 1784. In 1783, as president of the Continental Congress, he signed the Treaty of Paris, and was for a time President of the United States in Congress Assembled. After the Constitution was ratified, he served as a U.S. Representative from 1789 to 1795, then was appointed Director of the United States Mint.

Boudinot, Elias , 1740–1821, political leader in the American Revolution, b. Philadelphia. A lawyer of Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), N.J., he took an active part in anti-British activities and was a member of the Continental Congress both before and after the adoption of the Articles of Confederation (1777–78, 1781–84), serving as its president from 1782 to 1783. He ardently supported the U.S. Constitution and helped secure its ratification by New Jersey. He served in Congress (1789–95) and was director of the U.S. mint (1795–1805). He was an ardent philanthropist, notably for the Native Americans, and he was first president (1816–21) of the American Bible Society.

Boudinot supported the rights of Native Americans and is not to be confused with the other Elias Boudinot, who in 1835 helped arrange the signing of the Treaty of New Echota, in which a small minority group of Cherokee agreed to the emigration of the entire Cherokee Nation, resulting in most Cherokee eventually being rounded up by the Army and detained in concentration camps.