WEDNESDAY, JULY 6TH, 2022 INDEPENDENCE WEEK - CONTINUED

 WEDNESDAY, JULY 6TH, 2022 INDEPENDENCE WEEK - CONTINUED

Let’s look at a few of the obscure signers of the Declaration.

Joseph Hewes:

“Joseph Hewes was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Born in New Jersey to Quaker parents, Hewes attended Princeton University. Hewes moved to North Carolina in 1760 where he got involved in politics and was elected to the North Carolina Legislature in 1763.

In 1774, Hewes was voted to be one of North Carolina's representatives to the First Continental Congress. The following year, Hewes was re-elected and served in the Second Continental Congress. Hewes voted for Independence, and he signed The Declaration of Independence. After signing The Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, Hewes continued to serve in the Continental Congress until his death in 1779. Hewes was also appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1776, another position that he held until his death. 

“Even though Hewes was from New Jersey and a representative of North Carolina (at the time of his death), Hewes died in Philadelphia, and he was buried in Philadelphia at Christ Church Burial Ground.

“Joseph was a Quaker, and Quakers are traditionally pacifists, even in Joseph's time. The fact that Joseph was in favor of war to obtain independence set him apart from most Quakers of the time, and he was also one of only a handful of Quakers at the Continental Congress.”

***

Hewes was one of two that never married but was engaged and his wife-to-be died in 1766.

*****

Button Gwinnett was born in England around 1735. He came to America, residing briefly in Charleston, and in 1765 acquired a large tract of land in Georgia. Gwinnett enjoyed little success in farming or business but found a footing in the revolutionary politics of his adopted colony. He was engaged in a long-standing political rivalry with Lachlan McIntosh, a soldier, and leader who would attain the highest rank in the Georgia militia and in state politics. Gwinnett was a respected figure, however. In 1776 he was appointed commander of Georgia's continental militia (a post that he was forced to decline, owing to the political faction) and elected to attend the Continental Congress. Quite soon after he signed the Declaration, he returned home, where he hoped to gain an appointment, once again, to the leadership of the Georgia militia. The appointment went instead to his rival. Gwinnett served in the Georgia legislature where he was involved in drafting a constitution for the new state, but also in strenuous efforts to destroy the office of McIntosh. The legislature adjourned in February of 1777 and handed control over the Council of Safety. Gwinnett succeeded Archibald Bulloch as president of the council soon afterward. He then led an abortive attempt to invade Florida, in order to secure Georgia's southern border. That adventure was thwarted by Lachlan McIntosh and his brother George, and Gwinnett was charged with malfeasance. He was cleared of wrongdoing as he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Governor. Soon afterward, his honor was challenged in public by McIntosh, and he offered a duel. They met outside of Savanna on May 16, 1777, where both were wounded. McIntosh ultimately survived, Button Gwinnett died three days later at the age of 42.”

*****

(Wow - aren’t there better ways of clearing your “honor” than having a duel?)

*****

Thomas Heyward, Jr. was born in South Carolina in 1746. He received a classical education at home and continued in legal studies, which he completed in England. In 1775 he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1778 he returned to South Carolina to serve as a Judge. He was taken prisoner by the British while in command of a Militia force during the siege of Charleston. He resumed his Judgeship following the war and retired in 1798. He died in March of 1809 at age 62.

Thomas was not the youngest signer at age 30 but was one of the youngest.

*****

“Carter Braxton was born of a wealthy family in Newington Plantation Virginia. He lost nearly all of his wealth in the course of the revolution, partly through his support of the Union, and partly through an attack by the British forces. He was educated at William and Mary College. He married at age 19, but his wife died about two years after. He then went to England for a little more than two years. In 1760 he returned, married again, and was appointed to represent King William County in the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was in attendance in 1765 when Patrick Henry's Stamp Act resolutions agitated the Assembly. In 1769 he joined the "radical" faction of the Burgesses in support of Virginia's sole right to tax inhabitants. When the house was dissolved in 1774 he joined the patriot's Committee of Safety in Virginia and represented his county in the Virginia Convention. In 1775, upon the sudden death of Peyton Randolph, Braxton was selected to assume his place in the Continental Congress. He attended two years, after which he returned to Virginia to continue service to the House of Burgesses. During the War, he had loaned £10,000 sterling to support the revolutionary cause. He had also used his wealth to sponsor shipping and privateering during the conflict, the losses from which eventually resulted in the debt. He never recovered, and, in 1786, was forced to leave his inherited country estate for simple quarters in Richmond. He died at age 61.

Braxton was the most prolific of the signers with 18 children!!!  (And, he left them in debt!!) 

*****

Caesar Rodney was born on his father's farm near Dover, Delaware, in October of 1728. He was tutored by his parents and may have attended a local Parson's school, but received no formal education. His father died when Caesar was 17. He was placed in the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely who was a clerk of the peace in Kent county, and this seems to be the root of Rodney's life in politics. In 1755, under the royal government, Rodney was commissioned High Sheriff of Kent County Delaware. This was quite a distinction for a man twenty-two years of age and he apparently honored the distinction, for in succeeding years his official capacities grew to include registrar of wills, recorder of deeds, clerk of the orphan's court, and justice of the peace. At age thirty he attained his first elected office as a representative in the colonial legislature at Newcastle. He served in that position, reelected each year except 1771 until the legislature was dissolved in 1776-and then resumed the seat as a representative to the Upper House of the State of Delaware until 1784.

Rodney was a leading patriot in his colony, a member of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, a formative member of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence, a military leader in the colonial militia, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from formation until 1777. The following year he was elected President of the State of Delaware for a three-year term, a duty that he assumed even as he served as Major-General of the Delaware Militia. In this office, he played a crucial part not only in the defense of his own colony but in support of Washington's Continental Army, for Delaware had a record of meeting or exceeding its quotas for troops and provisions throughout the revolutionary conflict. Rodney's health and strength flagged for a time. He suffered from asthma and from a cancerous growth on his face, for which he never attained proper treatment. He saw his colony through the war at the cost of personal neglect.

In 1782 he was again elected to the national Congress but was forced to decline the office due to failing health. He nonetheless continued to serve as Speaker of the Upper House of the Delaware Assembly. He died in that office, in June of 1784.

*****

So, four signers of the Declaration of Independence that I didn’t know.  Two (today) were bachelors, one died in a duel, and one died in debt.  One was a Quaker (generally pacifists but supported the war.).

*****

Can you imagine what life was like in 1776 Colonial America?  Can you imagine being present at the debate over independence?  Can you imagine signing one of the most significant documents in the world - where the last sentence is: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”?

If you had been present in 1776 (and around for the gradual erosion of the ties that bound the colonies to England), would you have voted for independence?  

Was American Independence like a divorce?  Bitter at the time, but now we are great allies with Great Britain?  

If the conditions (taxation, etc.) then had happened now (with instant communications, phones, flights, diffusion of ideas, political partisanship, and non-stop media coverage), would the revolution have happened?

LOVE WINS!!

Karen

July 5th, 2022