Founders
There are 76 Founding Members, each of which is unique in that they will “adopt” a founding father as their moniker in to honor them.
Founders from the Constitution State Connecticut
General Israel Putnam
GrittyIntrepidWittyIf there was a rock-ribbed New Englander, a bold man of action among the founding fathers, it was General Israel Putnam. Unlike the political leaders, the Moses’ of America, “Old Put” was the Joshua, throwing himself headlong into the fight. Only five feet six inches tall but powerfully built, the only image of him, a Trumbull sketch, shows a bulldog look which reminds us of Winston Churchill. His taste for battle only reinforces that impression.
Oliver Wolcott
EnergeticHardworkingPersistentSince the first patriotic act of his ancestor Henry Wolcott, who immigrated to America as one embracing the principles of liberty, Oliver followed in his footsteps when he signed his name to the Declaration of Independence and held command of the Connecticut militia in the American Revolution. His own words testify to his principles of liberty when he said, “I shall most cheerfully render my country every service in my power.”
Roger Sherman
DrivenNoblePrudentJohn Adams wrote of him, “The honorable Roger Sherman was one of the most cordial friends which I ever had in my life. Destitute of all literary and scientific education but such as he acquired by his own exertions, he was one of the most sensible men in the world. The clearest head and the steadiest heart.” Despite humble beginnings, born in 1721 to a Massachusetts farmer and shoemaker, Sherman had grown to fill a place of distinction among the great Founding Fathers of the Declaration, and the Constitution. His contribution to the principle documents of the new nation would be a debt no man could repay.
Samuel Huntington
CordialDignifiedReservedProvidence has an ingenious way of uplifting the humble and lowering the lofty, and many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were happy participants of this same divine providence. Born July 3, 1731 to a humble Connecticut farmer and his pious wife, Samuel Huntington entered history at such a time which required his every energy and ability. The oldest of ten children, Samuel had little time for formal education, applying his early youth to the barrel-making trade. Huntington expanded his education on a part time basis. By the age of twenty-seven he was admitted to the bar and commenced his law practice in Windham, Connecticut.
William Williams
DevotedDisciplinedGenerousBorn into a family of ministers and soldiers, Williams lived his life as a perfect reflection of those great men who came before him, as he battled his foes with sword, word and pen. Growing up in a wealthy family Williams had numerous education opportunities and personal tutelage; among these achievements Williams served as an aid to his uncle, Colonel Williams, founder of Williams College. It was on the battlefield of the French and Indian War that won Williams over to objections to English rule and allegiance to the patriot cause, and forever turned his actions to the preservation of his country.
Founders from the Small Wonder Delaware
Caesar Rodney
CandidFaithfulIndomitableHome-schooled and the oldest in a family of eight children, Rodney took over the family’s eight-hundred-acre farm at the age of seventeen and helped his widowed mother train the other children until his late 20s, when he began public service. And when he began that service, he never stopped till the day he died at age fifty five. No one in the history of Delaware, to this day, has held as many offices as Caesar Rodney. It was not easy living for the patriot representative. Not only were there many Tories in the population, they may have been a majority. Rodney suffered from a cancer in his nose and face which marred his visage to such an extent, he wore a green silk veil over half his face. He suffered from asthma and gout, sometimes leaving him unable to walk. Not one to sit idle in hard times, he also commanded the Delaware patriot militia army on several occasions and rose to the rank of General.
George Read
FaithfulHardworkingSensibleRead was the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who voted against the independence resolution put forward by Richard Henry Lee in June of 1776. Other delegates abstained and others voted against the resolution, but Read, who actually desired independence but thought the resolution premature, stuck around and signed anyway. He caused a lot of drama because his vote against could have meant Delaware would not vote aye, but the last minute heroics of his colleague Caesar Rodney saved the day. Read would eventually be one of only six men who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution.
Thomas McKean
DisciplinedHonestIndefatigableBorn to Scots-Irish parents in Pennsylvania, Thomas M’Kean became the ultimate over-achiever in life but gained the distinction of the last signer of the Declaration of Independence. At nine he was placed under the tutelage of the Rev. Francis Allison, whose extensive knowledge of history, law, and politics, contributed much to M’Kean’s training and that of another Delaware delegate to the Continental Congress, George Read.
Founders from Our Ally France
Lafayette
DaringIndomitableLoyalHis full name staggers the elocution of the average American: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. In his seventy six years of life, Lafayette fought for American independence and for the revolution in France, which turned against him; he was imprisoned for five years by the Austrians, refused to serve under Napoleon, and finished his long life with the restored French Republic after Napoleon’s defeat. George Washington loved him as a son and gave him command of American troops in vital roles in the War for Independence. He named his only son George Washington. General Lafayette returned to the United States in 1824 for America’s fiftieth anniversary, for what proved to be a triumphal tour like none that would ever be held for any other foreigner in the history of the country. He is buried in France under soil brought from Bunker Hill.
Rochambeau
BraveHumblePerseveringIf ever a man lived up to his family motto, the comte de Rochambeau was that man: “To Live and Die as a Gallant Knight.” In providential parlance, Rochambeau was the right man in the right spot at the right time, to enable the United States to win independence from Great Britain. Without his leadership, sense of protocol, experience and commitment to duty, General George Washington’s final campaign would likely have come to naught, with fatal consequences to the new Republic.
Admiral Comte de Grasse
BoldBrilliantRefinedLieutenant General des Armees Navales Francois-Joseph Paul, Marquis de Grasse Tilly, comte de Grasse
France did not send just anybody to aid the American cause against Great Britain. Comte de Grasse, one of France’s finest admirals not only sailed for America, but lived up to his grand titles and name, driving Britain’s fleet from the Chesapeake Bay and sealing the fate of Lord Charles Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown, Virginia in 1783. His is a name that should adorn the highest ramparts of our national edifice of heroes.
Founders from the Peach State Georgia
Button Gwinnett
BrashDedicatedResoluteThe colony farthest from Philadelphia, least populated, and with a largely loyalist population, Georgia nonetheless possessed some dedicated opponents to the crown. As the patriot cause grew, the leaders of the rebellion prevailed upon businessman Button Gwinnett to throw in his lot with them. Someone saw something in Gwinnett that indicated he might be a useful leader in the nascent independence movement. Like the other founders, Gwinnett possessed character flaws and had a sometimes chequered past, but his commitment to liberty won him the trip to Philadelphia to represent Georgia in the building of a new nation.
George Walton
HardworkingPerseveringRelentlessFew of the signers had a rags to riches life. Not so Walton who, In God’s good providence, did not settle into his state as an orphan and carpenter’s apprentice, but through relentless reading as an autodidact, hard physical labor, and a deep thirst for knowledge overcame his early handicaps to play a key role in leading Georgia to independence.
Lyman Hall
ForcefulIntelligentPurposefulConnecticut born and bred, Yale educated, Hall joined others of the New England diaspora that migrated south looking for new economic opportunities in colonies with more temperate climate, more scattered population and potential opportunity for public service. Hall ended up in St. John’s Parish in coastal Georgia among others of New England patrimony, but surrounded by counties loyal to the crown and disinterested in rebellion or independence.
Hall’s education aimed at the Gospel ministry and to that end he actually acceded for a while. Deciding that the church was not his calling after all, the Connecticut native settled on medicine as his new pursuit.
Founders from the Free State Maryland
Charles Carroll
DiligentPerseveringResourcefulWhen Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the Declaration of American Independence, he was both the wealthiest man in the United States and the only important founder who adhered to a church whose members did not have the right to vote! The Providential Liberty in store for generations of future Americans emanated from the life of the man who had the most to lose, when he pledged his life, his property, and his sacred honor.
Samuel Chase
BoldGenerousPrincipledBorn on April 17, 1741 in Somerset County, Maryland, Samuel was the only child of the Reverend Thomas Chase and Matilda Walker Chase. Since his mother died in childbirth, his Episcopalian pastor father raised the boy who would later sign the Declaration of Independence.
After studying law under a local attorney, Sam was admitted to the bar at the age of 20, and soon after married Anne Baldwin, with whom he had six children.
Thomas Stone
DevotedDisciplinedReservedPrimogeniture was alive and well in the colonies as many of the signers of Declaration of Independence could affirm. Although raised in a family of means and given a good education, not every younger son took advantage. Thomas Stone did. Riding many miles to school each day, Stone’s intellectual acumen combined with his stern self-discipline to impel him, like so many of his political colleagues then and now, into the study of law and service at the bar.
William Paca
CleverEndearingSincereSome historians see William Paca as primarily a wealthy lovable rogue. He certainly was wealthy, another lawyer, born to a family of substantial means. He was lovable though more quiet than boisterous. And he hung out with young men of his ilk and pulled some memorable patriotic pranks. His colleague in the Continental Congress Benjamin Rush commented on Paca that he was a “good-tempered worthy man with a sound understanding that he was too indolent to exercise. And hence his reputation in public life was less than his talents.”
Founders from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Elbridge Gerry
CleverDeliberatePersistentAs the third of twelve children from Marblehead, short and stuttering, Elbridge would take a back seat to no one. After graduating from Harvard in 1662, where in his Master’s address he argued for American resistance to the Stamp Act, he joined his father’s cod-fishing business and “amassed a considerable fortune.” Proving himself as a community leader led to election to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1773 and to a close friendship with John Adams and connection to various political action groups of the colony.
Robert Treat Paine
IndependentPersistentVersatileSon and grandson of Congregational ministers, the Treats and the Paines, gave this signer of the Declaration of Independence a theological bent which he pursued early in life. Born in 1731 and educated at both Boston Latin and Harvard, Paine’s uncertainty of his calling in life resulted in pursuing a position as a teacher, then as a pastor, in which capacity he served as a military chaplain in the French and Indian War. Still uncertain, Robert took to the sea, traveling to a number of foreign ports and even serving on a whaling vessel near Greenland. Upon his return home, Paine unexpectedly married his friend Sally Cobb who eventually bore him eight children. He finally settled on law as his life’s work. As providence would have it, in 1770 Robert Treat Paine found himself the prosecuting attorney in the “Boston Massacre” case.
John Hancock
DapperGenerousSelf-SacrificingOrphan, merchant, multi-millionaire, philanthropist, smuggler, President of the United States, snappy dresser and great hand-writer, John Hancock almost stands forth as a modern politician. Vain to a fault but generous beyond all others, unlike most modern politicians he was willing to hazard his considerable fortune, actually possessed sacred honor, and was sincere in pledging them with his life for the cause of liberty and for the generations to come. His signal offenses to the British put him beyond the pale of any possible raprochement or amnesty. He and his friend and colleague Sam Adams would “hang together or hang separately” in Franklin’s apt phrase.
John Adams
ForthrightHonestPretinaciousHonest, Forthright, Pretinacious
John Adams, a man whose greatest loves were family and farming, understood he was a branch on a tree planted by his forebearers, which rooted in soil enriched by the Protestant Reformation, a love of liberty, and respect for law, order, and hard work. When the mother country began substituting tyranny, abandoning centuries of legal precedent, and issuing demands for taxation without jurisdiction, Adams took up his pen, loosened his sharp tongue, and went to war in defense of his sacred trusts. Evaluating John Adams without considering his sense of history and right would be to describe the Alps without mentioning the Matterhorn.
Samuel Adams
FieryRelentlessSpiritedThe “Massachusetts malcontent” stands in the very first rank of men whose efforts brought about independence. He became known in America as “the father of American independence” and “the father of the Revolution.” Thomas Jefferson called him “truly the Man of the Revolution.” Samuel, like his cousin John, has been the subject of myth-making and misunderstanding by historians, but his contemporaries had no doubts about the reality of his convictions and zeal for the cause of independence.
James Otis
ArdentBrilliantSincereIf there is a lost founding father, he is James Otis. John Adams said of him that his arguments against unjust laws were “a flame of fire. . .a profusion of legal authorities” and that he “never knew a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any ten years of his life were so important and essential.” Yet his name does not appear on the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. He did not fight in the War for Independence, though his brothers, cousins and brother-in-law did. James Otis, nonetheless, was instrumental in bringing about the birth of a new nation.
Paul Revere
AdventurousProlificTirelessThe third of thirteen children of Apollos DeRevoire, a French Huguenot silversmith from the Isle of Guernsey, Paul followed in his father’s craftsman footsteps. In the years leading up to Independence, throughout the war, and deep into the “Federal Period,” Paul Revere probably accomplished more in life than any two others of the founding fathers. Yet, he would be a relatively unknown figure had not the New England poet William Wordsworth immortalized him in a poem in 1863, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
John Quincy Adams
BrilliantDisciplinedTenaciousMore a founding son than a father, Adams would live well into the 19th Century, the most brilliant link in a chain of Adams men distinguished for two centuries in many avenues of American politics, society and culture. As a young teenager, Adams would contribute significantly to the foreign policy successes of the early Republic and later take his place as President of the United States, son of a President. He kept a personal diary for sixty nine years, which runs to fifty volumes.
Joseph Warren
BraveInspiringSelf-lessThe great patriotic artist William Trumbull’s iconic paintings have adorned the walls of many an American home and art gallery. The colorful and dramatic oil painting “The Death of General Warren at Bunker Hill” portrays the last moments of the life of one of the founders most devoted to liberty, though he died thirteen months before Independence! Had he survived, Warren would have likely been at the foremost of the leaders that followed George Washington to independence.
Henry Knox
PowerfulSelf-ReliantUnyieldingWhen the American War for Independence began there were few men in the thirteen colonies that possessed any experience commanding large numbers of men in combat. The colonial wars had been fought primarily by small bands of militia and settlers on the frontiers of New England, New York and the Appalachian Mountains. The French and Indian War (1756-1763) provided limited opportunity for command by Americans since the main armies were red-coated professionals from England and were led by English or Scottish Generals, often contemptuous of the colonials. George Washington had the most experience in higher rank but had not held independent command, except at the Battle of Fort Necessity, where he lost his entire army to a small band of French and Indians. In 1775, Congress gave the supreme command of the American militia army to George Washington. Trial and error would characterize his search for qualified men who would and could obey his orders and lead the country to victory. Providence brought a brilliant and scrappy Scotch-Irish Boston bookseller named Henry Knox to Washington’s doorstep.
Founders from the Granite State New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
CompassionateHonorableWiseThe youngest of seven children, Josiah Bartlett determined at an early age he wanted to be a doctor, and so began his apprenticeship at age sixteen. After five years of delivering babies, mixing medicines, and fixing broken bones, he was declared ready and hung out his shingle as Dr. Bartlett. At the age of 25 he married his cousin Mary and he brought twelve of his own children into the world. His character, honesty, and impartiality, not to mention his competence, made him popular in the community, so much so that he was appointed justice of the peace and commander of the local militia company. He was elected to the provincial assembly in 1765.
Matthew Thornton
UnflinchingWiseWittyA descendant of persecuted Scottish Presbyterians, Thornton’s family came to America by way of Ireland, but found little compatibility among the Puritans of New England. Finally settling in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Matthew, following an ongoing Scot-dominated profession, set up his medical practice with signal success. Also following what had become a pronounced Scotch-Irish pursuit in America, he criticized the English Parliament and royal tyranny. A bachelor until the age of 46, he finally married eighteen year old Hannah Jack and fathered five children.
William Whipple
BraveIndependentPerseveringThe same age as his comrade Josiah Bartlett, 46, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, William Whipple, born in Maine, lived a colorful life as sea captain, army general, and member of Congress. Oldest of five children, Whipple went to sea at a young age and was captain of a merchant ship throughout his twenties. Retiring at age 29 with significant wealth, he went into the mercantile business with his brother, enhanced his prosperity and married his cousin Catherine Moffat.
Founders from the Garden State New Jersey
Abraham Clark
CourageousFaithfulSteadfastBorn into a quiet country farm in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, Abraham Clark’s life would entail more adventure, hardship and suffering than his modest beginnings implied. Although a sickly and frail child, Clark devoted much of his time to personal study, and developed a fondness for mathematics. Not only was he a self-taught scholar, but as he matured into manhood became both a surgeon and a counselor to his neighbors on legal issues, fondly referred to as the “poor man’s counselor.” Clark’s first public office was as sheriff of Essex County, New Jersey. At twenty-two he married Sarah Hatfield of Elizabethtown, and together they had ten children. Abraham Clark was well on his way to prominence, not necessarily as a New Jersey farmer, but as a patriot for independence.
Francis Hopkinson
BrilliantInventiveWittyIt was an age of unusually gifted men who, in another time, would have been the progenitors of an English-speaking Renaissance. Francis Hopkinson ranks alongside Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson as a brilliant and multi-talented artist, musician, inventor, wit, and political satirist. His position as a lawyer and a judge, a churchman and a family man, and then as member of the Continental Congress gave opportunity for the flourishing of his talents. Like many of his colleagues, he possessed a significant library, which, as was customary in those times, was looted and wrecked by the Hessians.
John Hart
DiligentHonestWiseKnown by fellow delegate Benjamin Rush as a “plain, honest, well-meaning Jersey farmer,” John Hart lived his life (1711-1779) to the utmost for family, country and independence. Born in Stonington, Connecticut, and later moving to Hopewell, New Jersey, John Hart rose in fame and fortune as a self-educated gentleman and a well-respected farmer. From his diligence and good character, he earned the reputation of “honest John Hart” as a farmer, statesman and patriot; a reputation which would carry throughout his entire life.
Ascending to the position of justice of the peace Hart added the virtue of “fairness” to his growing repertoire, and in 1761 was elected to the New Jersey legislature where he was continually reelected until it dissolved in 1771. In those span of years John Hart opposed the Stamp Act of 1765 where he united with other patriots in believing that “the right to tax the colonies lay with the colonies only – and not with Great Britain.”
John Witherspoon
CommittedCourageousFaithfulThe call for independence and resistance to tyranny resonated throughout the valleys of the frontier and in the halls of academe among Americans of Scottish birth or heritage. Multiple thousands answered the call for leaders and marksmen, for commitment and courage; few men of any stripe would match the influence and impact of John Witherspoon, the President of the College of New Jersey.
Dr. Witherspoon’s reputation for uncompromising and successful theological disputation on behalf of the more conservative wing of the Scottish Kirk, and his strong resistance to the humanist challenges of philosopher David Hume, had already brought him to the attention of influential American Presbyterians, such as Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush.
Richard Stockton
FaithfulFortunateUnfortunateFather-in-law of signer Benjamin Rush, married to the sister of founding patriot and future President of the United States Congress, Elias Boudinot, and close friend of President of the College of New Jersey at Princeton and fellow signer, John Witherspoon, Stockton’s position among the great men of New Jersey seemed secured. He collected art and raised blooded horses, inheriting a sizeable fortune from his father in the decade before the war. His service in a prestigious law firm only enhanced the patrimony he was due. Little did Stockton know that when he signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of New Jersey, he alone among that august group would be singled out for that act alone and face prison, disease, and economic disaster, and to some, the ruination of his good name.
Founders from the Empire State New York
Alexander Hamilton
GeniusIndefatigablePrepossessingHis father abandoned his mother and him, poverty stricken, on the Island of Nevis in the Caribbean. His indifferent education was supplemented by reading the thirty four books in the home. After his mother died, her husband took all the property, leaving the orphan Alexander in poverty. His cousin adopted him but shortly after committed suicide. Young Alexander Hamilton managed to get employment as a clerk, with as unsure a future as a young man could have and with little prospect of a life beyond poverty and obscurity. At the end of his life, which ended tragically in a duel, Hamilton had become one of the greatest success stories of history having served as an officer on the staff of George Washington, Congressman, Delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Secretary of the Treasury, founder of the U.S. Mint and Major General. His service in the Treasury set the financial course of the new nation.
Francis Lewis
ForthrightHonestSelf-SacrificingLike his fellow New York signer, William Floyd, Lewis came from Welsh stock, a hardy and intrepid soul. Orphaned at an early age and raised by an aunt in Wales, he managed to acquire an education in Great Britain and an apprenticeship as a clerk. With a small inheritance he purchased goods in Europe to sell in America and struck out to seek his fortune. He was shipwrecked twice and, during service in the and Indian War, was captured at Fort Oswego along with 1700 British subjects by the French under General Montcalm. Lewis escaped the ensuing massacre of some of the captives; some historians have made the doubtful claim that his safety resulted from speaking Welsh to the Indians and they understood him. He survived imprisonment for seven years by the French. Upon his release Lewis received a grant of 5,000 acres on Long Island for his hardship in the war. He returned to his wife and seven children and rebuilt his fortune.
John Jay
DedicatedDiligentPiousJohn Jay descended from brave Huguenot exiles from France who came to America after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They prospered in trade, continued to marry fellow French expats and saw to the education and success of their children and grandchildren. John Jay, from a family of ten children, was mostly home educated until he attended and graduated from Columbia University, then known as The King’s College. He read law, passed the bar and “almost immediately established an extensive and lucrative practice” in New York. His contributions to independence and the early Republic placed him among the greatest of the founders as a patriot, a statesman, and defender of the rule of law.
Lewis Morris
BoldPrincipledSelf-SacrificingOf all the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Lewis Morris had as many or more ties with Royal authority than anyone. His grandfather was the royal governor of New Jersey, and other relatives served as Chief Justice of New York, Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania etc. Like the other signers from New York, his economic position placed him among the wealthiest men of the city, he owned slaves, and would have been expected to assume a moderate position on relations with Great Britain. But Morris was a patriot from the get-go.
Phillip Livingston
CompetentGenerousHonestGrandson of a Scottish minister and son of a New York land baron who owned about 250 square miles of land around New York City and along the Hudson River, Phillip Livingston at first demonstrated the hauteur and patronizing attitude usually associated with an English gentleman. Although suspicious and critical of the Sons of Liberty, he had protested Parliament’s unwarranted taxes and supported non-importation. As a sixty year old multi-millionaire merchant in Congress, he began with a more moderate view of relations with Britain. When the King rebuffed olive branch petitions, Livingston committed to armed resistance–he took the pledge, signed his name and lost a good bit of his fortune as a result.
William Floyd
DevotedHumbSincereAs a Long Island, New York native, of Welsh ancestors, Floyd wanted nothing more than to be left alone to tend his property and family. A conservative by birth and inclination, he was not spoiling for a fight with Great Britain. He spoke out against unconstitutional taxation but kept his own council as New York patriots formed committees of correspondence and Sons of Liberty. As Colonel Floyd of the Long Island Militia, he found that events had overtaken his region and the fight was brought to him by His Majesties forces. He would not be slack in his response.
Founders from the Tarheel State North Carolina
John Penn
Hard-workingIndustriousTirelessUnlike most of the other signers, John Penn did not have the privilege of gaining an early education. Born the only child of Moses and Catherine Penn, his only book learning occurred at a free grammar school for the space of two or three years. Despite his late start, Penn overcame his difficulties to become a lawyer, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the 16 signers to also add his name to the Articles of Confederation.
Joseph Hewes
AffableFaithfulSensibleFull of surprises, Joseph Hewes was both a Quaker and an advocate of Independence, a merchant who cheerfully aided in the non-importation act. In North Carolina Hewes “acquired the confidence and esteem of the people among whom he lived, and was soon called to represent them in the colonial legislature of the province. This distinction was conferred upon him for several successive years, with increasing usefulness to his constituents, and increasing credit to himself.” The year 1774 required the services of Hewes at the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Although North Carolina greatly encouraged their delegates to vote for Independence, it took Hewes some years of persuasion before he would sign the document for Independence. His signature ultimately secured the unanimity of the colonies.
William Hooper
BraveEloquentResoluteAlthough born into the family of a Loyalist minister, and marrying into a loyalist family, William Hooper distinguished himself as a true patriot and advocate for Independence with his life, his fortune and his sacred honor. While his life was in danger many times before and during the war, and his fortunes ran thin, Hooper lived a life worthy of his time, and he deserved the distinction to be among the Founders of the Declaration of Independence.
Founders from the Keystone State Pennsylvania
Benjamin Franklin
InventiveWiseWitty“Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than marble.” So begins the introduction to Franklin on the dust jacket of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Franklin. In another excellent modern biography of Franklin, the title says it all: The First American.
Benjamin Rush
CuriousGenerousOpinionatedLike several other of the signers in those perilous times, Benjamin Rush’s father died when Ben was young and he was raised by a hard-working single mother. His immigrant grandfather had fought alongside Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil Wars before coming to Pennsylvania. Benjamin was tutored by a strict Presbyterian uncle and matriculated at Princeton, where the President, Samuel Davies, instilled in Rush an “insatiable love for knowledge.” He graduated at fourteen. With a keen interest in medicine, the autodidactic and inquisitive Rush attached himself to a local physician and pursued the practice of medicine for the rest of his life, becoming one of the best known doctors in the world.
George Clymer
DevotedSelf-SacrificingSteadfastA firm and steadfast patriot, George Clymer was a forerunner to American Independence and a servant of the developing Constitutional Republic. In his lifetime Clymer engaged in the defense of his country, signed the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution and founded the first American Bank, not to mention his personal financial aid to the Continental Army during the early period of the war. His deep desires for independence from Britain had begun early in life, but escalated to a point where “his predominant passion was to promote every scheme for the improvement of his country.” In fact, his numerous sacrifices proved his dearest wish, which “was for his country to be independent.”
George Ross
BraveFaithfulPrincipledAnother son of a clergyman among the signers of the Declaration of Independence (there were at least six of them), George Ross received much of his education from his father. He joined the bar at twenty one and married one of his first clients, the beautiful Ann Lawler. They built a substantial home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he found great success in his calling. A conservative supporter of the crown, a reliable Tory in politics, it seemed that for Ross, the future contained nothing but prosperity and preferment.
George Taylor
Hard-workingPhlegmaticResourcefulUntil the 19th century, the majority of immigrants to America came as slaves or indentured servants—about 75% of the English and 60% of the German immigrants were indentured arrivals to Pennsylvania in colonial times. George Taylor was one of them. Born in Ireland in 1716, the son of a minister, he arrived in Pennsylvania penniless at the age of twenty, and bound to an ironmonger. He rose from coal shoveler to clerk and worked off his indenture.
James Smith
HumblePioneeringSteadfastJames Smith was born in Ireland around 1719. He emigrated to Cheshire County Pennsylvania with his family when he was ten or twelve years old. His father was a successful farmer and James benefited from a good, simple, classical education from a local Church Minister. He later studied law at the office of his older brother George, in Lancaster. Smith was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar at age twenty-six, and set up an office in Cumberland County, near Shippensburg. This was a frontier area at the time, so he spent much of his time engaged in surveying, only practicing law when such work was available. After four or five years he moved back to more populated York, where he might practice law exclusively.
James Wilson
BoldIntellectualReliableScotland born and educated, the highly respected and intellectual Wilson was one of six signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The firmest believer that political power is derived from the people and that government should serve them, his pamphlets and speeches won over many in the debates of the day. He earned the respect of all of his colleagues and was considered by some in the Constitutional Convention second only to James Madison as “most able and useful.” He read the aged Benjamin Franklin’s speeches for him to the Convention and was considered his spokesman.
John Morton
CourageousResoluteSteadyOf the signers of the Declaration of Independence who did not survive to witness the defeat of Great Britain and the establishment of the United States, John Morton was the first to die. Little did he know that his signature on August 2nd, at age fifty-two would be one of his last ones, for he would barely live to see fifty three years.
Robert Morris
DiligentResourcefulSelf-DisciplinedKnown as the “Financier of the Revolution,” Robert Morris lived to serve his country by sacrificing his energy, ability, and prosperity for the preservation of American liberty and independence. One of the few signers of all three documents: The Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution, Morris devoted his experience as a merchant and businessman to manage the finances of the war effort regardless of what it cost him. One historian notes that “ the Americans owed and still owe, as much acknowledgment to the financial operations of Robert Morris, as to the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin, or even the arms of George Washington.”
Founders from the Ocean State Rhode Island
Nathanael Greene
BoldDedicatedLoyalGeorge Washington considered Nathanael Green his most trustworthy General in the Revolutionary War. Like Washington his mentor, Greene did not always win his battles and he committed occasional strategic errors; but he always retained the devotion of his men and, in the end, won the victory that counted. When the war ended, Greene’s military reputation was second only to Washington’s– Not bad for the youngest general in the army, an asthmatic iron monger from a pacifist sect, hobbled with a congenital knee problem, and whose only prior experience involved recruiting state militia.
Stephen Hopkins
ConvivialInspiringWittyThe second oldest signer of the Declaration of Independence (at 69, one year younger than Ben Franklin), Hopkins had defied the demographic age limit of his times by many years. He had participated with his family in the slave trade, but ended up freeing his own slaves, then played the key role in outlawing slavery in his state, the first anti-slavery legislation in America. As a farmer and a merchant, there were few offices that had eluded his public service and he was, perhaps, the best known man in the colony when he was sent to Congress. He had joined Franklin in the earliest attempts to unify the colonies and he lived to see it happen.
William Ellery
BrilliantElegantFastidiousBorn on December 22, 1727 in Newport, Rhode Island, William Ellery was a dutiful, determined and deeply religious man. At the age of 16 he was sent to study at Harvard, where he became fluent in Greek and Latin. As a highly educated young man, he was a brilliant and eloquent speaker and gained considerable attention for his elegant and neat handwriting. Upon graduating, he worked for his father’s mercantile business for 20 years, learning to trade and ship, which would later be useful when he was appointed to be U.S Collector of Customs.
Founders from the Palmetto State South Carolina
Arthur Middleton
LearnedSpiritedTenaciousThe only signer with two brothers-in-law as signers, Arthur Middleton’s career as tenacious leader and warrior for independence seemed to be a family affair. Born on June 26, 1742 near Charleston, SC, Middleton was the eldest son of Henry Middleton, the President of the Continental Congress. Henry was one of the wealthiest plantation owners in the region, owning nearly twenty, totaling over 50,000 acres of land with over 800 slaves. As a prominent politician, he insured that his son received the best education possible and sent Arthur to Westminster and later to Cambridge. At age 18, Arthur graduated from Cambridge as a brilliant scholar well-versed in Greek and Latin. He extended his education by traveling abroad for two years. During that time the young Middleton developed an acquired taste in music, architecture, and art. Now classically trained as a Renaissance man, Middleton returned home to South Carolina to wed Mary Izard. Shortly after, they toured Europe for an additional three years and eventually raised nine children together.
Edward Rutledge
AbidingBraveThoughtfulAs the youngest signer of the Declaration, Edward Rutledge was only twenty-six years old when he made the life-altering decision to pen his name. Born on November 23, 1749 in Charleston, South Carolina, he was also the youngest of seven children born to Dr. John and Sara Rutledge. Shortly after Edward’s birth, John Rutledge died, leaving his young 27-year old wife to raise seven children alone. During his formative years, Edward was educated by private tutors and worked as a clerk in his brother’s law office. When he was 20, he was sent to Middle Temple in London to study law.
Francis Marion
CleverDecisiveFearlessAs a guerilla fighter, he had no peer in the War for Independence. As an officer in the Patriot forces of South Carolina, he provided leadership that engendered fierce personal loyalty. As a foe of the invaders, the desire for his capture or death sometimes determined the strategies of armies large and small. Though the area of his independent military operations did not exceed the Peedee, Santee, and Black River regions, his raids affected the whole theatre of the war in the Carolinas. His enemies called him “The Swamp Fox.”
Thomas Heyward Jr.
BoldDecisiveResilientBorn in St. Luke’s Parish, South Carolina, now known as Jasper county, a mere 25 miles north of Savannah, on July 28, 1746, Thomas Heyward Jr. was the eldest son of a wealthy plantation owner. Previous generations in the affluent Heyward family had been successful indigo and cotton planters, but the Signer’s father, Daniel Heyward, was the first to grow rice as well, which proved to be highly successful crop in the low country. Due to his adroit business skills, the elder Heyward was able to acquire thousands of acres of land stretching from the Combahee River south toward Beaufort and Savannah.
Thomas Lynch Jr.
DevotedGenerousPatientBorn into a life of privilege, power, and prestige, Thomas Lynch Jr. was the son of an affluent political leader and wealthy planter in Prince George’s Parish, South Carolina. Thomas Lynch senior was a prominent South Carolina delegate in the Continental Congress, a role that his son would later inherit. At the age of 12, Lynch was sent to study at the venerable private college of Eton, in England. Founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, Eton was an illustrious establishment reserved only for noblemen and royalty. After graduating, he continued his education at the Cambridge University and also studied law at the exclusive Middle Temple in London. In 1772, Lynch returned to South Carolina to announce that he had no intention to practice law, despite spending years at one of the most renown law schools in the world. His father gave him a large plantation on the Sante River to start a new life with his wife, Elizabeth Shubrich (whose sister married South Carolina signer Edward Rutledge, making the two signers brothers-in-law).
Founders from the Old Dominion Virginia
Benjamin Harrison
AmbitiousDedicatedGregariousThe biggest and heaviest delegate at the Convention, Benjamin Harrison, quipped to his diminutive colleague Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, on the consequences of signing the Declaration of Independence, referring to the potential threat of hanging by the British, “It will be over with me in a minute, but you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone.” –a big man with gallows humor.
Carter Braxton
DedicatedDutifulGenerousHis grandfather owned forty two plantations. He inherited five when his own father died. After graduating from The College of William and Mary he married a wealthy girl who brought a large dowry and bore him two children before expiring. His second wife, the daughter of a British official, brought more property and bore him sixteen more children. He spent a couple years in England where he became steeped in British sentiment, settled in at his main plantation of Chericoke and made a further fortune in business with the great slave-trade enterprises of Providence, Rhode Island, led by the Brown family who endowed Brown University. Yet Braxton would be signatory to the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the most reluctant signer, given the pledge of fortunes in cash, land and slaves that attached to his name.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
GentlemanlyLoyalSteadfastBorn in Stratford Hall, Westmorland County, Virginia, as were all his five brothers and four sisters; everyone seems to agree that Francis Lightfoot played second fiddle to his more aggressive and outspoken older brother Richard Henry. He became a trustee of the town of Leesburg on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, just west of the future Washington D. C. and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1758 to 1776.He was selected to represent Virginia at the Second Continental Congress and served there in Philadelphia through the crucial first three years.
General Daniel Morgan
FearlessRelentlessToughGrandson of Welsh immigrants, first cousin of Daniel Boone, Morgan was destined by providence to take his place among the most honored and successful of the American generals in the War for Independence. First, though, he had to run away from home at age seventeen, slug a British officer in the French and Indian War and receive five hundred lashes, get shot in the face at point blank range fighting Indians, and become one of the most feared frontiersmen in Virginia.
George Mason
IntellectualPatientPrincipledSome colleagues saw him only as a sickly widower with nine children to raise on his own and a super-wealthy planter and intellectual who liked spending most of his time at home. Those assessments were true but, to the resume’ must be added, major author of the Fairfax Resolves and Virginia’ Declaration of Rights, the originator of important sections of the Constitution of the United States, and wearer of the title, “father of the Bill of Rights.” The United States would likely have been quite different without the efforts of George Mason IV.
George Wythe
BrilliantGenerousMagnanimousHe was the greatest teacher of law in America. The George Wythe School of law in Williamsburg, Virginia, today carries on his legacy. Thomas Jefferson called him “my faithful and beloved mentor in youth and my most affectionate friend through life.” Wythe saw something special in Patrick Henry and recommended him to his colleagues for licensure. He dropped clients who lied to him and refused taking a case when he believed the potential client was indeed guilty. He made bold his belief that the only legal tie to Britain was the King and that the monarch forfeited allegiance through tyranny. No one knew the common law better or the standard texts of English law.
James Madison
FastidiousGenuineSoft SpokenJames Madison could not be elected President of the United States today, just based on his diminutive frame, five feet four inches and under one hundred pounds. But his education, genius, and leadership qualities might disqualify him as well! Educated by Presbyterian clergymen, student of the President of Princeton, the Rev. John Witherspoon and holder of hundreds of slaves, this Founding Father would eclipse most of the others as the epitome of political incorrectness. Nonetheless, Madison was the principle author of the Constitution of the United States, led the nation against the mightiest military forces on the planet in 1812, and helped construct Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom. Short of stature and of ill health though he may have been, James Madison was a giant of a Founding Father.
John Paul Jones
AdventurousBrashFearlessIn the 1950s, country western singer Johnny Horton sang that John Paul Jones “was a fightin man, a fightin man was he, he sailed to the east and he sailed to the west and helped set America free.” And so he did. No American fighting captain has captured the interest of American boys in the past as did Jones. His colorful life– full of controversy, swagger, violence, and patriotic fervor has dominated the other great masters of the sea in history.
“Light Horse Harry” Lee
DaringFaithfulSteadfastYoung men of courage and daring are always prized in time of war. So much the better when providence places them in a situation that calls forth their natural talents. Such was the course of the Virginian Henry Lee in the War for American Independence. A member of the large and politically connected Lee families, he graduated from Princeton at age 17 but saw his burgeoning law career cut short by the War. After receiving a cavalry commission in the dragoons from Governor Patrick Henry, the patriotic young soldier showed real promise as a leader of light cavalry, performing dangerous reconnaissance behind enemy lines in the 1st Continental Dragoons.
Patrick Henry
BrilliantPrincipledWittySon of Scottish immigrants to Virginia and named after his clergyman-uncle, Patrick Henry with his ringing voice and unvarnished rhetoric led his countrymen into rebellion against the tyranny of King George; he was christened “The Trumpet of the Revolution.”
As a youngster he had sat at the feet of the great preacher Samuel Davies during the “Great Awakening,” much to the displeasure of his father but with the insistence of his mother. Patrick married his seventeen year old neighbor and began his working life as a rather unsuccessful farmer and tavern-keeper near the county courthouse.
Richard Henry Lee
BoldElegantEloquentNo family became so closely associated with Virginia than the Lees. Richard Henry was one of two Lee brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence and one of five who served simultaneously in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Epileptic and accident prone, fiercely loyal to his family even to his own hurt, his elegant manner did not prevent Lee from leading the fight against English tyranny side by side with his co-conspirator Patrick Henry. Missing four fingers on one hand due to a swan hunting accident, he held a black silk kerchief in his hand, which gave additional flourish to his accomplished and powerful oratory.
Thomas Jefferson
ComplexIngeniusRefinedBorn of modest lesser gentry in the piedmont of Virginia, no one would ever have guessed that this son of a frontier tobacco grower would go down in history as one of the most important and influential men America ever produced. Although he was a shy man who shunned the limelight and never gave public speeches, Jefferson possessed a towering intellect which explored many fields of thought including the sciences, architecture, literature, culture, agriculture, politics, religion, history, and philosophy. The Second Continental Congress turned to the thirty three year old Virginia polymath to write the Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
BelovedHonorableSelf-SacrificingAlthough battling serious spells of asthma, direct British attacks on his hometown, and never receiving compensation for his donations to the war effort and independence, Brigadier General Thomas Nelson Jr., nonetheless, lived a full and victorious life to the very end.
In 1738 Thomas Nelson Jr. was born to one of Virginia’s “first families” in Yorktown, and at the age of fourteen sailed to England to receive an education at Trinity College, Cambridge. At twenty-three, on his return home to join in the family mercantile business, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. One year later, in 1762, Nelson met and married Lucy Grymes with whom he had eleven children.
George Washington
BoldRefinedruggedAbigail Adams, early in the fight for independence and growing anxious in their noble cause, wrote to her husband that, “We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.” She was most definitely not referring to George Washington.
George Washington is, by most any reckoning, the only indispensable man in American history. Physically imposing and a head taller than nearly all his contemporaries, the American leader was a “rock star” before there was such a thing. He was an athlete and a warrior – a statesman, gentleman, sage, and the very personification of virtue, all wrapped into one. He was John Wayne, Indiana Jones, and Joe Montana amalgamated. If that sounds like an exaggeration, perhaps you haven’t truly made his acquaintance.
Washington’s exploits were every bit as heroic in real life as Wayne’s and Indiana Jones’ were in fiction. His physical prowess and iron resolve were unmatched, as his friends and enemies alike would attest. There has never been a man like him nor is there likely ever to be again. We owe him no less than our freedom – and that is but a part of the ledger.