D. C. Donahue Books

John 3:16 – Be thankful, grateful, patient, charitable, kind, and smile, as it is infectious. God Bless America; protect our President and Military! ~~~

~~~ Happy 250th Anniversary as we head into this upcoming 4th of July! ~~~

Keeping with this week’s patriotic theme of celebrating our 250th Anniversary as a nation. I am offering up some obscure facts about those who signed the Declaration of Independence. A little-known fact: for starters, it was on July 2 that the American Colonies voted to separate from Great Britain, while July 4th marks the date the Continental Congress formally approved the final text of the Declaration of Independence.

1. 56 delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. Of those 56 men, 38 survived the American Revolutionary War. While they mutually pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, none of them died at the hands of the British, though many suffered financial ruin. Though 9 of those signers died of wounds suffered during the war.
2. 9 of those were captured and imprisoned.
3. Wives and children were killed, jailed, mistreated, or left penniless.
4. 12 signer’s houses were burned to the ground.
5. 17 lost everything they owned.
6. No Signer Defected- Their honor, like their nation, remained intact.
7. John Adams firmly boycotted the July 4th celebrations, believing that July 2 should be the national holiday.
8. Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration on a portable desk in a rented room in Philadelphia
9. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest person to sign in 1776 at the age of 70.
10. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina was the youngest to sign at the age of 26 years old.
11. John Adams & Thomas Jefferson – Both served as the 2nd and 3rd Presidents of the United States. They died exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, on the same day, July 4, 1826.
12. George Washington was and is the only President to be unanimously elected to the Office, and he took office on April 30, 1789. Despite never really wanting the job, he wanted to retire to his home in Mount Vernon after the war. He is also the only President to be inaugurated in two cities- the first term in New York City on the portico of Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan on April 30, 1789. The second was held in Philadelphia, in the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall on March 4, 1793.

The Founding Fathers were not a monolith of stoic, elderly men. They were a dynamic, deeply flawed, and often eccentric group. Many were surprisingly young when they shaped the nation- like James Monroe, our fourth President, who was 18, and Alexander Hamilton, who was 22 during the Revolution.