What Occurred to the Declaration of Independence Signers?

Within the waning years of their prolonged lives, former presidents (and Founding Fathers) John Adams and Thomas Jefferson reconciled the political variations that had separated them for a few years and carried on a voluminous correspondence. One of many functions behind their change of letters was to set the file straight concerning the occasions of the American Revolution, for as creator Joseph J. Ellis famous, they (notably Adams, whom historical past wouldn’t deal with almost as kindly as Jefferson) have been keenly conscious of the “distinction between historical past as skilled and historical past as remembered”:

Adams realized that the act of reworking the American Revolution into historical past positioned a premium on choosing occasions and heroes that match neatly right into a dramatic formulation, thereby distorting the extra tangled and incoherent expertise that members truly making the historical past felt on the time. Jefferson’s drafting of the Declaration of Independence was an ideal instance of such dramatic distortions. The Revolution on this romantic rendering grew to become one magical second of inspiration, main inexorably to the foregone conclusion of American independence.

Evidently Adams was proper: So nice is our want for simplified, dramatic occasions and heroes that even the real-life biographies of the fifty-six males who risked their lives to publicly declare American independence are not compelling sufficient. By way of a number of variations of items just like the one quoted beneath, their lives have been repeatedly embellished with layers of fanciful fiction to make for a greater story:

THE PRICE THEY PAID

Have you ever ever questioned what occurred to the 56 males who signed the Declaration of Independence? What fates befell them for daring to place their names to that doc?

5 signers have been captured by the British as traitors and tortured earlier than they died.

Twelve had their properties ransacked and burned.

Two misplaced their sons serving within the Revolutionary Military, one other had two sons captured.

9 of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary Battle.

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

What sort of males have been they?

Twenty-four have been attorneys and jurists. Eleven have been retailers, 9 have been farmers and huge plantation house owners; males of means, properly educated. However they signed the Declaration of Independence realizing full properly that the penalty can be dying in the event that they have been captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a rich planter and dealer, noticed his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He offered his residence and properties to pay his money owed, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was compelled to maneuver his household virtually consistently. He served within the Congress with out pay, and his household was saved in hiding. His possessions have been taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

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

On the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., famous that the British Normal Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson residence for his headquarters. He quietly urged Normal George Washington to open fireplace. The house was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his residence and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his spouse, and he or she died inside just a few months.

John Hart was pushed from his spouse’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 kids fled for his or her lives. His fields and his gristmill have been laid to waste. For greater than a 12 months, he lived in forests and caves, returning residence to seek out his spouse lifeless and his kids vanished. Just a few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a damaged coronary heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered related fates.

Such have been the tales and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These weren’t wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They have been soft-spoken males of means and training. That they had safety, however they valued liberty extra.

Standing speak straight, and unwavering, they pledged: “For the assist of this declaration, with agency reliance on the safety of the divine windfall, we mutually pledge to one another, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

They gave you and me a free and impartial America. The historical past books by no means informed you a large number about what occurred within the Revolutionary Battle. We did not struggle simply the British. We have been British topics at the moment and we fought our personal authorities!

A few of us take these liberties a lot with no consideration, however we should not.

So, take a couple of minutes whereas having fun with your 4th of July Vacation and silently thank these patriots. It isn’t a lot to ask for the value they paid. Bear in mind: Freedom is rarely free!

I hope you’ll present your assist by please sending this to as many individuals as you possibly can. It is time we get the phrase out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has extra to it than beer, picnics, and baseball video games.

As we frequently do, we’ll strive right here to strip away these amassed layers of fiction and get all the way down to no matter kernel of fact could lie beneath:

• 5 signers have been captured by the British as traitors and tortured earlier than they died.

It’s true that 5 signers of the Declaration of Independence have been captured by the British in the course of the course of the Revolutionary Battle. Nonetheless, none of them died whereas a prisoner, and 4 of them have been taken into custody not as a result of they have been thought of “traitors” attributable to their standing as signatories to that doc, however as a result of they have been captured as prisoners of warfare whereas actively engaged in navy operations in opposition to the British.

George Walton was captured after being wounded whereas commanding militia on the Battle of Savannah in December 1778, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge (three of the 4 Declaration of Independence signers from South Carolina) have been taken prisoner on the Siege of Charleston in Could in 1780. Though they endured the sick therapy sometimes afforded to prisoners of warfare throughout their captivity (jail situations have been fairly deplorable on the time), they weren’t tortured, neither is there proof that they have been handled extra harshly than different wartime prisoners who weren’t additionally signatories to the Declaration. Furthermore, all 4 males have been finally exchanged or launched; had they been thought of traitors by the British, they might have been hanged.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey was the one signer taken prisoner particularly due to his standing as a signatory to the Declaration, “dragged from his mattress by night time” by native Tories after he had evacuated his household from New Jersey, and imprisoned in New York Metropolis’s notorious Provost Jail like a typical prison.

• Twelve had their properties ransacked and burned.

It’s true that a lot of signers noticed their properties and property occupied, ransacked, looted, and vandalized by the British (and even in some circumstances by the Individuals). Nonetheless, as we focus on in additional element beneath, this exercise was a typical a part of warfare. Signers’ properties weren’t particularly focused for destruction — like many different Individuals, their property was topic to seizure when it fell alongside the trail of a warfare being waged on the North American continent.

• Two misplaced their sons serving within the Revolutionary Military, one other had two sons captured.

Abraham Clark of New Jersey noticed two of his sons captured by the British and incarcerated on the jail ship Jersey. John Witherspoon, additionally of New Jersey, noticed his eldest son, James, killed within the Battle of Germantown in October 1777. If there was a second signer of the Declaration whose son was killed whereas serving within the Continental Military, now we have but to establish him.

• 9 of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary Battle.

This assertion is kind of deceptive as phrased. 9 signers died in the course of the course of the Revolutionary Battle, however none of them died from wounds or hardships inflicted on them by the British. (Certainly, a number of of the 9 did not even participate within the warfare.) Just one signer, Button Gwinnett of Georgia, died from wounds, and people have been acquired not by the hands of the British, however from a fellow officer with whom he dueled in Could 1777.

• Carter Braxton of Virginia, a rich planter and dealer, noticed his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He offered his residence and properties to pay his money owed, and died in rags.

Earlier than the American Revolution, Carter Braxton was possessed of a substantial fortune by way of inheritance and favorable marriages. Whereas nonetheless in his teenagers he inherited the household property, which included a flourishing Virginia tobacco plantation, upon the dying of his father. He married a rich heiress who died when he was simply 21, and inside just a few years he had remarried, this time to the daughter of the Receiver of Customs in Virginia for the King. As a delegate representing Virginia within the Continental Congress in 1776, he was one of many minority of delegates reluctant to assist an American declaration of independence, a transfer which he seen on the time as too harmful:

[Independence] is in reality a delusive Bait which males inconsiderably catch at, with out realizing the hook to which it’s affixed … America is just too defenceless a State for the declaration, having no alliance with a naval Energy nor as but any Fleet of consequence of her personal to guard that commerce which is so important to the prosecution of the Battle, with out which I do know we can’t go on for much longer.

Braxton invested his wealth in business enterprises, notably delivery, and he endured extreme monetary reversals in the course of the Revolutionary Battle when most of the ships wherein he held curiosity have been both appropriated by the British authorities (as a result of they have been British-flagged) or have been sunk or captured by the British. He was not personally focused for damage as a result of he had signed the Declaration of Independence, nonetheless; he suffered grievous monetary losses as a result of most of his wealth was tied up in delivery, “that commerce which is so important to the prosecution of the Battle” and which was due to this fact a primary navy goal for the British. Even when he hadn’t signed the Declaration of Independence, Braxton’s ships would have been casualties of the warfare simply the identical.

Though Braxton did lose property in the course of the warfare and needed to dump belongings (primarily landholdings) to cowl the money owed incurred by the lack of his ships, he recouped a lot of that cash after the warfare however subsequently misplaced it once more by way of his personal ill-advised enterprise dealings. His fortune was significantly diminished in his later years, however he didn’t by any stretch of the creativeness “die in rags.”

• Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was compelled to maneuver his household virtually consistently. He served within the Congress with out pay, and his household was saved in hiding. His possessions have been taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

As one biography describes Thomas McKean (not “McKeam”):

Thomas McKean would possibly simply symbolize an excellent examine of how far political engagement may be carried by one man. One can scarcely imagine the variety of concurrent workplaces and duties this man carried out in the course of the course of his lengthy profession. He served three states and plenty of extra cities and county governments, typically performing duties in two or extra jurisdictions, even whereas engaged in federal workplace.

Amongst his many workplaces, McKean was a delegate to the Continental Congress (of which he later served as president), President of Delaware, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and Governor of Pennsylvania. The above-quoted assertion concerning his being “hounded” by the British in the course of the Revolutionary Battle might be based mostly upon a letter he wrote to his good friend John Adams in 1777, wherein he described how he had been “hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to take away my household 5 instances in three months, and ultimately mounted them in somewhat log-house on the banks of the Susquehanna, however they have been quickly obliged to maneuver once more on account of the incursions of the Indians.”

Nonetheless, it’s problematic to claim that McKean’s therapy was attributable to his being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. (His title doesn’t seem on printed copies of that doc authenticated in January 1777, so it’s possible he didn’t affix his title to it till later.) If he was focused by the British, it was fairly presumably as a result of he additionally served in a navy capability as a volunteer chief of militia. In any case, McKean didn’t find yourself in “poverty,” because the property he left behind when he died in 1817 was described as consisting of “shares, bonds, and big land tracts in Pennsylvania.”

• Vandals or troopers looted the properties of Dillery, Corridor, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

To start with, this passage has a few misspellings: the signers referred to are William Ellery (not “Dillery”) and Edward Rutledge (not “Ruttledge”). Secondly, this sentence is deceptive in that it implies a motive that was almost definitely not current (i.e., these males’s properties have been looted as a result of they’d been signers of the Declaration of Independence).

The necessity to forage for provides in enemy territory has lengthy been part of warfare, and so it was removed from unusual for British troopers within the area to acceptable such materials from personal residences in the course of the American Revolution. (Not solely have been properties used as sources of meals, livestock, and different crucial provides, however bigger homes have been additionally taken over and used to quarter troopers or to function headquarters for officers.) In some circumstances, even American forces took benefit of the native citizenry to provision themselves. On condition that many extra outstanding American revolutionaries who have been additionally signers of the Declaration of Independence (e.g., Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris) had properties in areas that have been occupied by the British in the course of the warfare, but these properties weren’t looted or vandalized, it is arduous to make the case that the boys named above have been particularly focused for vengeance by the British slightly than unlucky victims whose property fell within the path of an armed battle being waged on American soil.

• On the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., famous that the British Normal Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson residence for his headquarters. He quietly urged Normal George Washington to open fireplace. The house was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

The story about Thomas Nelson’s urging or suggesting the bombardment of his personal home is one among a number of Revolutionary Battle legends whose fact could by no means be identified. A number of variations of this story exist, one among which (as referenced above) holds that Nelson inspired George Washington to shell his Yorktown residence after British Main Normal Charles Cornwallis had taken it over to make use of as his headquarters in 1781:

Cornwallis had turned the house of Thomas Nelson, who had succeeded Jefferson as governor of Virginia, into his headquarters. Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had led three Virginia brigades, or 3,000 males, to Yorktown and, when the shelling of the city was about to start, urged Washington to bombard his personal home. And that’s the place Washington, together with his skilled surveyor’s eye, apparently pointed the gun for the primary (and singularly deadly) allied shot. Legend has it that the shell went proper by way of a window and landed on the dinner desk the place some British officers, together with the British commissary common, had simply sat all the way down to dine. The final was killed and several other others wounded because it burst amongst their plates.

Different variations of the story have Nelson directing the Marquis de Lafayette to coach French artillery on his residence:

The story goes that the brand new Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson (who’d been held at Yorktown however launched beneath a flag of truce) was with American forces that day. Lafayette invited Nelson to be current when Captain Thomas Machin’s battery first opened fireplace, as each a praise and realizing Nelson lived in Yorktown and would know the localities within the riverport space. “To what specific spot,” Lafayette reportedly requested Nelson, “would your Excellency direct that we should always level the cannon.” Nelson replied, “There, to that home. It’s mine, and … it’s the greatest one within the city. There you’ll be virtually sure to seek out Lord Cornwallis and the British headquarters.”

“A simultaneous discharge of all of the weapons within the line,” Joseph Martin wrote, was “adopted [by] French troops accompanying it with ‘Huzza for the Individuals.'” Sounding very like the Nelson legend, Martin’s account added that “the primary shell despatched from our batteries entered a sublime home previously owned or occupied by the Secretary of State beneath the British, and burned instantly over a desk surrounded by a big social gathering of British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a lot of them.”

Nonetheless different accounts preserve this legend is a conflation of two separate occasions: Thomas Nelson, appearing as commander in chief of the Virginia militia, ordered a battery to open fireplace on his uncle’s residence, the place Cornwallis was then ensconced. Later, Nelson supposedly made a pleasant guess with French artillerists wherein he challenged them to hit his residence, one of many extra outstanding landmarks in Yorktown.

Regardless of the fact, the Nelson residence was actually not “destroyed” as claimed. The house stands to today as a part of Colonial Nationwide Historic Park, and the Nationwide Park Service’s description of it notes solely that “the southeast face of the residence does present proof of harm from cannon fireplace.”

• Francis Lewis had his residence and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his spouse, and he or she died inside just a few months.

Francis Lewis represented New York within the Continental Congress, and shortly after he signed the Declaration of Independence his Lengthy Island property was raided by the British, possibily as retaliation for his having been a signatory to that doc. Whereas Lewis was in Philadelphia attending to congressional issues, his spouse was taken prisoner by the British after disregarding an order for residents to evacuate Lengthy Island. Mrs. Lewis was held for a number of months earlier than being exchanged for the wives of British officers captured by the Individuals. Though her captivity was undoubtedly a hardship, she had already been ill for a while and died just a few years (not months) later.

• John Hart was pushed from his spouse’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 kids fled for his or her lives. His fields and his gristmill have been laid to waste. For greater than a 12 months, he lived in forests and caves, returning residence to seek out his spouse lifeless and his kids vanished. Just a few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a damaged coronary heart.

John Hart’s New Jersey farm was looted in the middle of the Revolutionary Battle (presumably due his standing as Speaker of the Meeting), and he did have to stay in hiding in close by mountains for a short while, however the remainder of the above passage is gross exaggeration. When the British overran the realm of New Jersey the place Hart resided in late November of 1776, he was not “pushed from his [dying] spouse’s bedside,” as his spouse had already died a number of weeks earlier (and most of his 13 kids have been adults by then). He actually did not spend “greater than a 12 months” on the run dwelling “in forests and caves,” because the Continental Military recaptured the realm inside a month (by way of Normal George Washington’s well-known crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night time). Hart additionally didn’t die “from exhaustion and a damaged coronary heart” a mere “few weeks” after rising from hiding — in 1778 he was re-elected to the New Jersey meeting, and he invited the American military to encamp on his New Jersey farmland in June 1778 earlier than succumbing to kidney stones in Could 1779.

• Norris and Livingston suffered related fates.

Lewis Morris (not Norris) certainly noticed his Westchester County, New York, residence taken over in 1776 and used as a barracks for troopers, and the horses and livestock from his farm commandeered by navy personnel, however he suffered these preliminary deprivations by the hands of the Continental Military, not the British. Shortly afterwards his property was appropriated, looted, and burned by the British after they occupied New York. (Morris and his spouse have been finally capable of reclaim their property and restore their residence after the warfare.)

Philip Livingston misplaced a number of properties to the British occupation of New York and offered off others to assist the warfare effort, and he didn’t get well them as a result of he died all of a sudden in 1778, earlier than the tip of the warfare.