The 56 signers

[louixo]

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence ?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors,and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners;
men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.


Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson
home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed,
and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: freedom is never free!

I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many people as you can, please. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics and baseball games.

 

[Turtle]

Brought a tear to me eye, too (not really), until two things happened. One, I read the final paragraph, of which the first line is usually a red flag. If you're supposed to send this to as many people as you can, it almost certainly contains misleading, incorrect or outright false information. In this case, it contains all three, along with some actual facts. The second line in the last paragraph tells us to feel badly about celebrating our freedom in any manner that we choose, and we're supposed to somehow feel guilty for the signers. The second thing that happened is, of course, I realized that I've read this before, it gets circulated every year, and it's been resoundingly refuted ever since it was first published in an Ann Landers column in July 2001.

No signer was killed outright by the British, and only one, Richard Stockton, is said to have been imprisoned solely for having signed the Declaration of Independence. The others were captured while fighting in the army and were treated just like any other prisoner of war (which was fairly harsh), but they were not tortured. Of the 56 signers, 17 (not nine) held commissions in the army or did medical duty during the war. Many of those whose property was looted or destroyed managed to re-establish themselves financially after the war.

Carter Braxton did suffer financial hardship because of the British, but he retained other holdings. What ruined him were commercial setbacks after the war. Thomas McKean did not die in poverty. In fact, he was quite wealthy when he died at the age of 83 in 1817. No one knows for sure if Thomas Nelson's home was fired upon (the source of this story is family legend), but one thing that is for sure is, the home was turned into a tourist attraction after the war, and every single cannonball hole in the home was added for "authenticity."

The other facts are essentially correct, but give the impression that these men died as a result of wounds suffered in the war, or they died in poverty. In reality, the majority survived the war and rebuilt their fortunes.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence knew they could have been targeted by the British as traitors. They showed tremendous courage and bravery by willingly putting their names on a document that could bring about their deaths. They were remarkable men. We do not need to embellish the truth, especially when the truth is more impressive than the embellishment. The factual version of the above is contained below, from The Heritage Foundation, but can also be found in many places, not the least of which is the The Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Fifty-six individuals from each of the original 13 colonies participated in the Second Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania sent nine delegates to the congress, followed by Virginia with seven and Massachusetts and New Jersey with five. Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and South Carolina each sent four delegates. Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire, and North Carolina each sent three. Rhode Island, the smallest colony, sent only two delegates to Philadelphia.

Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers, two were cousins, and one was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. The oldest delegate was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, who was 70 when he signed the Declaration. The youngest was Thomas Lynch, Jr., of South Carolina, who was 26.

Eighteen of the signers were merchants or businessmen, 14 were farmers, and four were doctors. Forty-two signers had served in their colonial legislatures. Twenty-two were lawyers--although William Hooper of North Carolina was "disbarred" when he spoke out against the Crown--and nine were judges. Stephen Hopkins had been Governor of Rhode Island.

Although two others had been clergy previously, John Witherspoon of New Jersey was the only active clergyman to attend--he wore his pontificals to the sessions. Almost all were Protestant Christians; Charles Carroll of Maryland was the only Roman Catholic signer.

Seven of the signers were educated at Harvard, four each at Yale and William & Mary, and three at Princeton. John Witherspoon was the president of Princeton and George Wythe was a professor at William & Mary, where his students included the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.

Seventeen of the signers served in the military during the American Revolution. Thomas Nelson was a colonel in the Second Virginia Regiment and then commanded Virginia military forces at the Battle of Yorktown. William Whipple served with the New Hampshire militia and was one of the commanding officers in the decisive Saratoga campaign. Oliver Wolcott led the Connecticut regiments sent for the defense of New York and commanded a brigade of militia that took part in the defeat of General Burgoyne. Caesar Rodney was a Major General in the Delaware militia and John Hancосk was the same in the Massachusetts militia.

Five of the signers were captured by the British during the war. Captains Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, and Arthur Middleton (South Carolina) were all captured at the Battle of Charleston in 1780; Colonel George Walton was wounded and captured at the Battle of Savannah. Richard Stockton of New Jersey never recovered from his incarceration at the hands of British Loyalists and died in 1781.

Colonel Thomas McKean of Delaware wrote John Adams that he was "hunted like a fox by the enemy--compelled to remove my family five times in a few months, and at last fixed them in a little log house on the banks of the Susquehanna . . . and they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions of the Indians." Abraham Clark of New Jersey had two of his sons captured by the British during the war. The son of John Witherspoon, a major in the New Jersey Brigade, was killed at the Battle of Germantown.

Eleven signers had their homes and property destroyed. Francis Lewis's New York home was destroyed and his wife was taken prisoner. John Hart's farm and mills were destroyed when the British invaded New Jersey and he died while fleeing capture. Carter Braxton and Thomas Nelson (both of Virginia) lent large sums of their personal fortunes to support the war effort, but were never repaid.

Fifteen of the signers participated in their states' constitutional conventions, and six--Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, and George Reed--signed the United States Constitution. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts attended the federal convention and, though he later supported the document, refused to sign the Constitution.

After the Revolution, 13 of the signers went on to become governors, and 18 served in their state legislatures. Sixteen became state and federal judges. Seven became members of the United States House of Representatives, and six became United States Senators. James Wilson and Samuel Chase became Justices of the United States Supreme Court.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Elbridge Gerry each
became Vice President, and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became President. The sons of signers John Adams and Benjamin Harrison also became Presidents.

Five signers played major roles in the establishment of colleges and universities: Benjamin Franklin and the University of Pennsylvania; Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Benjamin Rush and Dickinson College; Lewis Morris and New York University; and George Walton and the University of Georgia.

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Carroll were the longest surviving signers. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll of Maryland was the last signer to die--in 1832 at the age of 95.

 

[louixo]

Holy ka ka Batman!...I should have checked with snopes! Thanks for the heads up Shelled One.
I will pass on this info to the ones I sent it to on my email list.

 

[paullud]

Brought a tear to me eye, too (not really), until two things happened. One, I read the final paragraph, of which the first line is usually a red flag. If you're supposed to send this to as many people as you can, it almost certainly contains misleading, incorrect or outright false information. In this case, it contains all three, along with some actual facts. The second line in the last paragraph tells us to feel badly about celebrating our freedom in any manner that we choose, and we're supposed to somehow feel guilty for the signers. The second thing that happened is, of course, I realized that I've read this before, it gets circulated every year, and it's been resoundingly refuted ever since it was first published in an Ann Landers column in July 2001.

You forgot a third thing a lot of these forwards contain, viruses.

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