Forgotten
Founders

The Continental Association (1774). Declaration of Independence (1776). Articles of Confederation (1781). Constitution (1787). Roger Sherman signed every one. No one else did.

He spoke 173 times at the Constitutional Convention. Then he sat on the Committee of Style and wrote the Preamble. The before-and-after drafts survive.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776). The Constitutional Convention (1787). The Objections to the Constitution (1787).

The Continental Association (1774). The Declaration on Taking Up Arms (1775). The Articles of Confederation (1776). John Dickinson wrote or co-wrote all of them.

Patrick Henry's name is synonymous with the Revolution's demand for liberty. His relationship to that word, what he meant by it, who it included, and what he did when the government that promised it ...

Maryland was founded as a Catholic refuge. Then the law spent seventy years dismantling that refuge. By 1776, Charles Carroll of Carrollton could not vote, could not hold office, could not practice la...

In May 1776 he stood in Princeton and preached that Providence was guiding the Revolution, six weeks before he was elected to Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence.

One of only six men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He proposed the single executive, a president, not a committee of three.

He taught law to Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and James Monroe. He signed the Declaration of Independence. He was the first law professor in America.

Caesar Rodney rode 80 miles through a storm to break Delaware's deadlock. John Morton cast Pennsylvania's deciding vote and was dead nine months later.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee stood in the Pennsylvania State House and introduced the resolution for independence. Not Jefferson. Not Adams. Lee.

He signed the Declaration of Independence. He refused to sign the Constitution. He moved for a Bill of Rights on September 12, 1787, the Convention unanimously rejected it.

He signed the Declaration of Independence. Washington put him on the Supreme Court. Congress impeached him on eight articles. The Senate, controlled by his political enemies, acquitted him on every count.

One of two men to sign the Declaration, the Articles, and the Constitution. He funded the Revolution from his own credit when Congress had nothing left. He died three years out of debtors prison.

The only physician signer of the Declaration. Alongside Washington at Trenton. Managed the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Engineered the Adams-Jefferson reconciliation. Adams said he did more good than Franklin or Washington.

No formal education past the basics. Built his career as a farmer, surveyor, and merchant. Nine terms as Governor of Rhode Island. Wrote the pamphlet in 1764 that established the colonial argument against parliamentary taxation — a decade before Common Sense.

The youngest signer at 26. Led the fight that delayed independence by a month. Voted against it on July 1. Changed his vote July 2. Signed August 2. Captured by the British at the Siege of Charleston in 1780.

He sent the urgent message that put Caesar Rodney in the saddle for his midnight ride. The British hunted him across Delaware and Pennsylvania. He told John Adams they moved his family five times in a single season.

At the signing he told Elbridge Gerry that being fat would work in his favor on the gallows. The joke is in the primary record. He was also Governor of Virginia, father of the ninth president, and great-grandfather of the twenty-third.

He positioned himself beside the secretary on August 2, 1776, to watch each delegate sign what he called their potential death warrant. The British burned his home. He served five presidents as Customs Collector and died at ninety-two.

Orphaned at one. One of only six men to sign the Declaration and the Constitution. He converted his fortune into Continental currency, which became nearly worthless. The British made a deliberate detour to vandalize his home.

He succeeded Jefferson as Governor of Virginia. He commanded the militia at Yorktown. He spent his personal fortune funding the war and died broke at fifty. His body was placed in an unmarked grave so creditors could not claim it.

The only man who voted against independence and then signed the Declaration. He then proposed that anyone who broke the cause be publicly named as a traitor. He signed the Petition to the King, the Declaration, and the Constitution.

He signed the Declaration. He designed the flag and billed Congress for his work, requesting a quarter cask of public wine. Congress rejected the claim. He also wrote the most widely circulated satire of the Revolution and dedicated a collection of songs to Washington.

He refused the governorship of South Carolina on principle. He was captured at the Siege of Charleston with two fellow signers and held prisoner in St. Augustine for nearly a year. His estate was ransacked. He died at forty-four.

He chaired the committee that fitted out the first American warships and secured John Paul Jones his commission. He voted against independence for months, then stood upright in his seat and cried "It is done! And I will abide by it." John Adams said he would give more for a painting of that moment than for the best piece of Raphael.

The Boston Massacre trial has two sides. The channel covered Adams's defense in Context Series 09. Robert Treat Paine prosecuted. He lost — Adams won — then went on to become the first Attorney General of Massachusetts and prosecute the case that abolished slavery in the state.

Washington was not the first person to hold the title "President of the United States." Samuel Huntington was. Under the Articles of Confederation he was President of the United States in Congress Assembled from 1779 to 1781. He was a self-taught farmer who borrowed law books from his neighbor's minister.

At Maryland's ratifying convention in 1788, Paca proposed 28 amendments to the Constitution. Several — including freedom of religion and freedom of the press — were later adopted as the Bill of Rights. Washington then appointed him federal district judge, recognizing that without men like Paca the Constitution might not have survived ratification.

The independence roll call on July 2, 1776 went state by state, north to south. New Hampshire was called first. Josiah Bartlett cast the first vote for independence in the room. He was a self-taught physician who had also taught himself law and went on to become the first governor of New Hampshire under its new constitution.

He signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776. Within weeks the British had seized his estate and turned it into a cavalry base. His wife buried the family silver and fled to Connecticut. She died in exile in 1781. Floyd did not recover his property until 1783. He died at eighty-six, one of the longest-lived signers.

He signed the Declaration at sixty. He helped found King's College, which became Columbia University. He lost his New York homes to the British occupation. He died in office at York, Pennsylvania on June 12, 1778, the third signer to die, before the Revolution was won.

Lewis Morris signed the Declaration knowing the British would come for Morrisania. They did. The estate was seized, stripped, and largely destroyed during seven years of occupation. He was the half-brother of Gouverneur Morris, who later wrote the Preamble to the Constitution.

George Ross spent twelve years as Crown Prosecutor before switching sides. He was not in Congress when the vote for independence was taken on July 2. He was elected sixteen days after July 4, traveled to Philadelphia, and signed. He became an admiralty judge and died at forty-nine, three months into the role.

Richard Henry Lee moved the resolution for independence. Francis Lightfoot Lee stayed in Philadelphia to cover the vote. Both signed. They are the only pair of brothers among the fifty-six signers. Francis chaired the congressional committee that kept the army alive at Valley Forge. He died four days after his wife.

His father was a loyalist who opposed his attendance at Congress. Thomas signed the Declaration anyway, returned to South Carolina, presided over loyalist treason trials, and was captured at the Siege of Charleston in 1780. His plantation was stripped. He was the last of the four South Carolina signers to survive.

He spent his twenties in the Triangle Trade. He freed the enslaved man in his household before marching to war. He helped build the Continental Navy, commanded New Hampshire troops at Saratoga, and died in office on the state bench in 1785.

He signed the Declaration in November 1776, three months after the formal signing. There was no room on the parchment beside the New Hampshire delegates. He signed beneath Connecticut. Born in Ireland, came to America at three, helped draft the first state constitution in America. He lived to eighty-nine.

William Williams was town clerk of Lebanon, Connecticut for forty-four years without interruption. He replaced Oliver Wolcott, who fell ill, arrived in Philadelphia after the vote, signed the Declaration, and died on August 2, 1811, exactly thirty-five years to the day after signing it.

Wolcott fell ill and left Philadelphia days before the vote for independence. William Williams took his seat and signed in his place. Wolcott returned that fall and added his signature. No one recorded the day. He also arranged for a statue of King George to be melted into musket balls for the Continental Army.

Born in Ireland, self-taught lawyer, one of five replacement delegates sent when Pennsylvania refused to vote for independence. He signed the Declaration, rode to York's town square to read it aloud to his neighbors, and practiced law until nearly eighty. In 1805 a fire destroyed his office and all of his papers.

He came to Pennsylvania from Ireland in 1736 with his passage paid by an ironmaster. He began by shoveling coal. He ended by signing the Declaration of Independence. He is the only indentured servant and the only ironmaster among the fifty-six signers. He converted his furnace into a munitions factory for the Continental Army.

Two years of formal schooling. He read law from Edmund Pendleton's library, one of the finest in the colonies. He practiced in Virginia, moved to North Carolina in 1774, voted for independence, signed the Declaration, signed the Articles of Confederation, and died at forty-seven. He completes the fifty-six signers.

Delaware's vote was deadlocked. Caesar Rodney rode eighty miles through a thunderstorm on the night of July 1, arriving at Independence Hall in his boots and spurs on July 2 in time to break the tie. His letter to his brother Thomas is the primary eyewitness account.

Gwinnett signed the Declaration, returned to Georgia, became Acting President, challenged General Lachlan McIntosh to a duel, and died of a gangrenous wound on May 19, 1777. His signature is the rarest of the fifty-six. The LOC holds McIntosh's letter describing the duel.

Morton cast the decisive vote that gave Pennsylvania to independence on July 2, 1776. He died of tuberculosis nine months later, the first of the fifty-six signers to die. His papers were destroyed when the British plundered his estate that fall.

Lynch replaced his dying father in Congress, signed the Declaration while ill himself, and sailed for the West Indies in December 1779. The ship disappeared. He was thirty years old. His signature is rarer than Gwinnett's.

Harvard graduate, studied law under James Otis, moved to North Carolina, helped suppress the Regulator movement, switched sides, had both his homes burned by the British, was disowned by his father. Died at forty-eight in Hillsborough.

Born in Connecticut, graduated from Yale, became a physician, moved to Georgia. He arrived at the Continental Congress in 1775 representing a single Georgia parish before the rest of the colony had committed to the Patriot cause. His estate was confiscated by the British.

Orphaned young, taught himself law, signed the Declaration, commanded militia at the Siege of Savannah on December 29, 1778, was wounded and captured. Held nine months as a prisoner. Went on to serve as Governor twice, Chief Justice, and Senator.