John Cadwalader (January 10, 1742 – February 10, 1786) was a commander of Pennsylvania troops during the American Revolutionary War and served under George Washington.

[4] In 1776, Colonel John Cadwalader was elected senior officer of the Philadelphia Associators, a volunteer militia founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1747.

[8] It was fortunate for Washington that a Hessian column, having marched from their garrison at Bordentown to Mount Holly where they were engaged in the Battle of Iron Works Hill, were no longer in position to defend Trenton.

[10] Cadwalader subsequently took part in the further actions in New Jersey, which forced the British commander General William Howe and his principal subordinate, Lord Cornwallis, to surrender the colony to the Americans.

[11] In 1779, Cadwalader became a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and returned to his estate on the banks of the Sassafras River at Shrewsbury, Kent County, Maryland.

[15] Thomas Paine wrote his epitaph: His early and inflexible patriotism will endear his memory to all true friends of the American Revolution.

[17] John and Elizabeth Cadwalader built a city house on 2nd between Spruce & Union (now Delancey) Streets in Philadelphia in 1770, and they commissioned suites of furniture from cabinetmakers such as Thomas Affleck and Benjamin Randolph.

A Cadwalader easy (wing) chair with hairy-paw feet by Affleck sold at Sotheby's New York for $2.75 million on January 31, 1987, setting a world record for the highest price ever paid for any piece of furniture at auction.