Virginia delegate Peyton Randolph became the first president of the First Continental Congress.
The First Continental Congress convened at Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies attended; Georgia did not participate. They chose Randolph, a prominent Virginia politician and former speaker of the House of Burgesses, to preside.
Randolph served until October 22, 1774, when ill health forced him to retire. Henry Middleton of South Carolina then completed the session as president. Randolph was later elected president of the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, but illness again ended his short tenure, after which John Hancock succeeded him.
This office was a presiding role, not the modern presidency of the United States. The United States had no president at the time: the Continental Congress operated as a revolutionary legislative body before independence was declared in 1776.