Fourth of July

moreluck

golden ticket member
July 4th History

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.
 

klein

Für Meno :)
Happy Independence Day in advance.

Independence from England, and here we are July 1st, celebrating with the Queen of England. Kind of ironic, but it's all history.
 

fxdwg

Long Time Member
Awesome post More.
I love the history lesson.
It's sad though, when you think about what they did and the prices they eventually paid.
I'd like to read more about all 56.
Enjoy the holiday.
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
The OP appears to be a mix of truth, half truth, and untruth:
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured
before they died.

It is true that five signers of the Declaration of Independence were
captured by the British during the course of the Revolutionary War.
However, none of them died while a prisoner, and four of them were taken
into custody not because they were considered "traitors" due to their
status as signatories to that document, but because they were captured
as prisoners of war while actively engaged in military operations
against the British: George Walton was captured after being wounded while commanding
militia at the Battle of Savannah in December 1778, and Thomas Heyward,
Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge (three of the four
Declaration of Independence signers from South Carolina) were taken
prisoner at the Siege of Charleston in May in 1780. Although they
endured the ill treatment typically afforded to prisoners of war during
their captivity (prison conditions were quite deplorable at the time),
they were not tortured, nor is there evidence that they were treated
more harshly than other wartime prisoners who were not also signatories
to the Declaration. Moreover, all four men were eventually exchanged or
released; had they been considered traitors by the British, they would
have been hanged.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey was the only signer taken prisoner
specifically because of his status as a signatory to the Declaration,
"dragged from his bed by night" by local Tories after he had evacuated
his family from New Jersey, and imprisoned in New York City's infamous
Provost Jail like a common criminal. However, Stockton was also the only
one of the fifty-six signers who violated the pledge to support the
Declaration of Independence and each other with "our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor," securing a pardon and his release from
imprisonment by recanting his signature on the Declaration and signing
an oath swearing his allegiance to George III.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

It is true that a number of signers saw their homes and property
occupied, ransacked, looted, and vandalized by the British (and even in
some cases by the Americans). However, as we discuss in more detail
below, this activity was a common (if unfortunate) part of warfare.
Signers' homes were not specifically targeted for destruction ? like
many other Americans, their property was subject to seizure when it fell
along the path of a war being waged on the North American continent.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two
sons captured.


Abraham Clark of New Jersey saw two of his sons captured by the British
and incarcerated on the prison ship /Jersey./ John Witherspoon, also of
New Jersey, saw his eldest son, James, killed in the Battle of
Germantown in October 1777. If there was a second signer of the
Declaration whose son was killed while serving in the Continental Army,
we have yet to find him.

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


This statement is quite misleading as phrased. Nine signers died during
the course of the Revolutionary War, but none of them died from wounds
or hardships inflicted on them by the British. (Indeed, several of the
nine didn't even take part in the war.) Only one signer, Button Gwinnett
of Georgia, died from wounds, and those were received not at the hands
of the British, but of a fellow officer with whom he duelled in May 1777.

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.

Before the American Revolution, Carter Braxton was possessed of a
considerable fortune through inheritance and favorable marriages. While
still in his teens he inherited the family estate, which included a
flourishing Virginia tobacco plantation, upon the death of his father.
He married a wealthy heiress who died when he was just 21, and within 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 in
the Continental Congress in 1776, he was one of the minority of
delegates reluctant to support an American declaration of independence,
a move which he viewed at the time as too dangerous:
[Independence] is in truth a delusive Bait which men inconsiderably
catch at, without knowing the hook to which it is affixed ... America is
too defenceless a State for the declaration, having no alliance with a
naval Power nor as yet any Fleet of consequence of her own to protect
that trade which is so essential to the prosecution of the War, without
which I know we cannot go on much longer.
Braxton invested his wealth in commercial enterprises, particularly
shipping, and he endured severe financial reversals during the
Revolutionary War when many of the ships in which he held interest were
either appropriated by the British government (because they were
British-flagged) or were sunk or captured by the British. He was not
personally targeted for ruin because he had signed the Declaration of
Independence, however; he suffered grievous financial losses because
most of his wealth was tied up in shipping, "that trade which is so
essential to the prosecution of the War" and which was therefore a prime
military target for the British. Even if he hadn't signed the
Declaration of Independence, Braxton's ships would have been casualties
of the war just the same.

Although Braxton did lose property during the war and had to sell off
assets (primarily landholdings) to cover the debts incurred by the loss
of his ships, he recouped much of that money after the war but
subsequently lost it again through his own ill-advised business
dealings. His fortune was considerably diminished in his later years,
but he did not by any stretch of the imagination "die 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.

As one biography
<http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/mckean.htm> describes
Thomas McKean (not "McKeam"):
Thomas McKean might just represent an ideal study of how far political
engagement can be carried by one man. One can scarcely believe the
number of concurrent offices and duties this man performed during the
course of his long career. He served three states and many more cities
and county governments, often performing duties in two or more
jurisdictions, even while engaged in federal office.
Among his many offices, 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 statement regarding his being "hounded" by the British
during the Revolutionary War is probably based upon a letter he wrote to
his friend John Adams in 1777, in which he described how he had been
"hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five
times in three months, and at last fixed them in a little log-house on
the banks of the Susquehanna, but they were soon obliged to move again
on account of the incursions of the Indians."

However, it is problematic to assert that McKean's treatment was due to
his being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. (His name does
not appear on printed copies of that document authenticated in January
1777, so it is likely he did not affix his name to it until later.) If
he was targeted by the British, it was quite possibly because he also
served in a military capacity as a volunteer leader of militia. In any
case, McKean did not end up in "poverty," as the estate he left behind
when he died in 1817 was described as consisting of "stocks, bonds, and
huge land tracts in Pennsylvania."
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,
Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

First of all, this passage has a couple of misspellings: the signers
referred to are William Ellery (not "Dillery") and Edward Rutledge (not
"Ruttledge"). Secondly, this sentence is misleading in that it implies a
motive that was most likely not present (i.e., these men's homes were
looted because they had been signers of the Declaration of Independence).

The need to forage for supplies in enemy territory has long been a part
of warfare, and so it was far from uncommon for British soldiers in the
field to appropriate such material from private residences during the
American Revolution. (Not only were homes used as sources of food,
livestock, and other necessary supplies, but larger houses were also
taken over and used to quarter soldiers or to serve as headquarters for
officers.) In some cases, even American forces took advantage of the
local citizenry to provision themselves. Given that many more prominent
American revolutionaries who were also signers of the Declaration of
Independence (e.g., Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, James
Wilson, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris) had homes in areas that were
occupied by the British during the war, yet those homes were not looted
or vandalized, it's hard to make the case that the men named above were
specifically targeted for vengeance by the British rather than
unfortunate victims whose property fell in the path of an armed conflict
being waged on American soil.

It's also a common misconception that the signing of the Declaration of
Independence was the event that triggered the Revolutionary War, so the
signers were directly responsible for whatever misfortunes befell them
(and their fellow Americans) as a result of that war. The war actually
began more than a year _before_ the signing of the Declaration of
Independence ? revolutionary events involving armed conflict, such as
the battles of Lexington and Concord, the seizure of Fort Ticonderoga by
Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys," the Battle of Bunker Hill,
and the capture of Montreal by General Richard Montgomery, all took
place in 1775.

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.


The tale about Thomas Nelson's urging or suggesting the bombardment of
his own house is one of several Revolutionary War legends whose truth
may never be known. Several versions of this story exist, one of which
(as referenced above) holds that Nelson encouraged George Washington to
shell his Yorktown home after British Major General Charles Cornwallis
had taken it over to use as his headquarters in 1781:
Cornwallis had turned the home 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 men, to Yorktown and, when the shelling of the town
was about to begin, urged Washington to bombard his own house. And that
is where Washington, with his experienced surveyor's eye, reputedly
pointed the gun for the first (and singularly fatal) allied shot. Legend
has it that the shell went right through a window and landed at the
dinner table where some British officers, including the British
commissary general, had just sat down to dine. The general was killed
and several others wounded as it burst among their plates.
Other versions of the story have Nelson directing the Marquis de
Lafayette to train French artillery on his home:
The story goes that the new Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson (who'd been
held at Yorktown but released under a flag of truce) was with American
forces that day. Lafayette invited Nelson to be present when Captain
Thomas Machin's battery first opened fire, as both a compliment and
knowing Nelson lived in Yorktown and would know the localities in the
riverport area. "To what particular spot," Lafayette reportedly asked
Nelson, "would your Excellency direct that we should point the cannon."
Nelson replied, "There, to that house. It is mine, and . . . it is the
best one in the town. There you will be almost certain to find Lord
Cornwallis and the British headquarters."

"A simultaneous discharge of all the guns in the line," Joseph Martin
wrote, was "followed [by] French troops accompanying it with 'Huzza for
the Americans.'" Sounding much like the Nelson legend, Martin's account
added that "the first shell sent from our batteries entered an elegant
house formerly owned or occupied by the Secretary of State under the
British, and burned directly over a table surrounded by a large party of
British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a number of them."
Still other accounts maintain this legend is a conflation of two
separate events: Thomas Nelson, acting as commander in chief of the
Virginia militia, ordered a battery to open fire on his /uncle's/ home,
where Cornwallis was then ensconced. Later, Nelson supposedly made a
friendly bet with French artillerists in which he challenged them to hit
his home, one of the more prominent landmarks in Yorktown.

Whatever the truth, the Nelson home was certainly not "destroyed" as
claimed. The house
<http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/declaration/site52.htm>
stands to this day as part of Colonial National Historical Park, and the
National Park Service's description of it notes only that "the southeast
face of the residence does show evidence of damage from cannon fire."

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


Francis Lewis represented New York in the Continental Congress, and
shortly after he signed the Declaration of Independence his Long Island
estate was raided by the British, possibily as retaliation for his
having been a signatory to that document. While Lewis was in
Philadelphia attending to congressional matters, his wife was taken
prisoner by the British after disregarding an order for citizens to
evacuate Long Island. Mrs. Lewis was held for several months before
being exchanged for the wives of British officials captured by the
Americans. Although her captivity was undoubtedly a hardship, she had
already been in poor health for some time and died a few years (not
months) later.

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. A few weeks later,
he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.


John Hart's New Jersey farm was looted in the course of the
Revolutionary War, and he did have to remain in hiding for a while
afterwards. However, the claim that he was "driven from his [dying]
wife's bedside" as his "13 children fled for his lives" is dramatic
fiction. The British overran the area of New Jersey where he resided in
late November of 1776, but his wife had already died on 8 October, and
most of their children were adults by then. He also did not die "from
exhaustion and a broken heart" a mere "few weeks" after emerging from
hiding ? he was twice re-elected to the Continental Congress, served as
Speaker of the New Jersey assembly, and invited the American army to
encamp on his New Jersey farmland in June 1778 before succumbing to
kidney stones in May 1779.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Lewis Morris (not Norris) indeed saw his Westchester County, New York,
home taken over in 1776 and used as a barracks for soldiers, and the
horses and livestock from his farm commandeered by military personnel,
but he suffered those deprivations at the hands of the Continental Army,
not the British. Shortly afterwards his home was appropriated by the
British, but Morris and his wife reclaimed the property and restored
their home after the war.

Philip Livingston lost several properties to the British occupation of
New York and sold off others to support the war effort, and he did not
recover them because he died suddenly in 1778, before the end of the war.
Courtesy of Snopes
 

moreluck

golden ticket member
Oh well, somebody sent it to me. I was just passing it along. I don't have the time to check everything on snopes.

Happy 4th ! (I really did wish a happy 4th. You don't have to check it on snopes to see if it's for real)
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
Oh well, somebody sent it to me. I was just passing it along. I don't have the time to check everything on snopes.

Happy 4th ! (I really did wish a happy 4th. You don't have to check it on snopes to see if it's for real)
Snopes says you're really a communist who hates America. :happy-very:
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Snopes says you're really a communist who hates America. :happy-very:

:happy-very:Thanks for the laugh. Went great with the morning coffee. Best wishes everyone for your holiday weekend. For us, it's birthday weekend as the 4th is my son's birthday and he still insists the fireworks are about him!
:wink2:

The idea that began the 4th is an idea not yet achieved rather than an idea in which we can return too. It was a beginning, not an end all!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If we all understood these principles among ourselves first and lived by them among ourselves, the gov't we have would change for the good from the bottom up and most of the complaints with gov't "WE ALL HAVE" would mostly go away on their own and thus many of our problems in society would go with it!

jmo
 

moreluck

golden ticket member
Originally Posted by Jones
Snopes says you're really a communist who hates America. :happy-very:

Actually snopes got that backwards...I'm an American who HATES Communists !!
 

Richard Harrow

Deplorable.
Happy Independence Day in advance.

Independence from England, and here we are July 1st, celebrating with the Queen of England. Kind of ironic, but it's all history.

... and now 234 years later, many argue that the United States has no greater ally than the country from which she claimed her independence.
 
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