Who was the first president of the First Continental Congress?

Peyton Randolph was the first president of the First Continental Congress. Delegates elected the Virginia politician to preside when Congress convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774.

The title meant presiding officer or speaker, not president of the United States. The First Continental Congress was a gathering of delegates from twelve colonies responding to the Coercive Acts, which colonists called the Intolerable Acts. Randolph helped guide its debates and was associated with efforts to coordinate colonial resistance.

Randolph also briefly served as the first president of the Second Continental Congress in May 1775. Poor health forced him to leave, and John Hancock succeeded him. Because the later presidency of the United States did not yet exist, Randolph is not counted as an American president in the constitutional sense. His office was legislative and largely procedural, unlike the executive presidency created by the Constitution.