History
The Forgotten Declaration of Independence Signers Who Lost Everything for Signing
July 4th celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Yet these men lost most everything for signing and defying the British Crown.
From Cromwell to Trotsky, history repeatedly demonstrates that revolutions devour their own children. Despite the constant patriotic thrum that recounts the olympian deeds of the American founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence, they were no exception to this rule. Some who signed that most radical of declarations did survive the struggle, achieving great prominence in their newly found nation. Many more, however, sacrificed no less than their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for the liberty they sought by the war’s end. The following names are only 13 signatories of the Declaration of Independence who gave all and more when their “John Hancock” inked that seditious parchment. An act both freeing themselves from the British yoke, and simultaneously marking themselves as traitors against the Crown.
Benjamin Harrison V
Benjamin Harrison V, a planter by profession, was a member of both Virginia’s House of Burgesses and delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1777.
History must think one traitor deserves another, because in January 1781 Harrison’s Virginia home was destroyed by forces under command of none other than the infamous Benedict Arnold.
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George Wythe
George Wythe, possessing both a reputation as notable scholar and skilled practitioner of law, served as a judge in Virginia. Wythe was party to both signing the Declaration of Independence, as well as serving in the Continental Congress.
Unfortunately Hamilton Usher St. George, a farmer leasing land on Whythe’s Virginia plantation Chesterville, was a British informant. St. George encouraged four British raiding parties to destroy neighboring farms and settlements along the James river, resulting in the conflagration of Williamsburg due to St. George’s inside information.
Evan after the eviction of St. George, Wythe’s tribulations persisted. The Yorktown battlefront resulted in the destruction of Wythe’s library and scientific instruments at the College of William and Mary’s fire.
James Wilson
James Wilson is one of the most outstanding American Founding Fathers that few are familiar with. He not only signed the Declaration, but was also highly influential in the creation of the United States Constitution. Moreover, President George Washington appointed Wilson as a justice on the first bench of the US Supreme Court.
Wilson after signing the Declaration of Independence, successfully defended 23 residents of Philadelphia from forced exile and property seizure following British withdrawal from the city.
Not long after however, a drunken riot of Philadelphia radicals besieged Wilson’s home, where he and 35 compatriots barricaded themselves, dubbing their stronghold, “Fort Wilson.” Local Continental Army units broke up the riot, extricating Wilson and company.
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Abraham Clark
Trained as a surveyor, Abraham Clark switched to law, teaching himself while still working as a surveyor. Once he went into practice, Clark was well known for defending cases of the poor who otherwise could not afford council.
Of the ten children Abraham Clark had with his wife, two sons serving in the Continental Army were captured by the British, tortured and beaten.
One son, a captain in the Continental Army, was placed onboard the notorious British prison ship HMS Jersey. Jersey was known for keeping between 1,000 and 1,200 prisoners captive at any given time; quickly developing a reputation as hell on earth.
Captain Clark was thrown in a dungeon, was rarely fed, and only so much as fit through his cell’s keyhole. The British offered Abraham Clark his son’s life and freedom, if Clark would recant his support for colonial Independence.
John Hart
John Hart was effectively a career politician for over 25 years prior to signing the Declaration of Independence. Hart inhabited roles that encompassed serving as a delegate of both the First and Second Continental Congresses.
As speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, Hart hid in the Sourland mountains for a time when the British Army advanced as far into New Jersey as Hunterdon county. Meanwhile, Hessian troops attacked and pillaged Hart’s farm.
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John Witherspoon
The Witherspoons emigrated to the colony of New Jersey in 1768 by invitation for John Witherspoon to become the sixth president of Princeton. Witherspoon successfully overhauled the floundering college, making it an equal of Yale or Harvard.
Familiar with Crown oppression in his native Scotland, Witherspoon joined the revolutionary cause eagerly. John Witherspoon sought election to the Continental Congress, serving as the bodies official chaplain. These plaudits came with a heavy price, however. John Witherspoon lost his son during the Revolution in 1777, fighting at the Battle of Germantown.
Richard Stockton
Richard Stockton was a trustee of the nascent Princeton college and was a crucial influence in Rev. Witherspoon’s decision to accept the presidency of the college. Prior to the Declaration of Independence, Stockton spent time abroad, most notably in England, trying to change minds to support the colonies cause for independence. When that didn’t work, Stockton returned to New Jersey and active rebellion.
Not long after signing, Stockton was captured, beaten, and turned over to the British by Loyalists while staying at the house of a friend. When he refused an offer of freedom by the British requiring pledging amenability to the Crown, Stockton was placed in irons at Perth Amboy and tortured.
Stockton’s captors next moved him to Provost Prison, New York, starving and exposing him to extreme winter weather. After five weeks, he was released on parole following the the intervention of Gen. George Washington. Stockton’s health never recovered.
What’s more, Stockton’s estate in New Jersey, Morven, was occupied by General Charles Cornwallis. The British stripped all the properties resources and finery upon decamping. However not before, with distinct malice, burning the Morven library. The Morven library was among the most acclaimed in all the colonies.
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Francis Lewis
For Francis Lewis, hardships preceded his revolutionary activities. Indeed they may have inspired Lewis’s turning to politics in the first place. Born in Wales and educated in Scotland, Lewis emigrated to New York in 1734.
During his tenure as a British mercantile agent, Lewis was captured and enprisoned in France. Upon his release and return to New York, Lewis immediately took up politics, beginning as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765.
Once the Declaration of Independence was signed, his home in Queens, New York was destroyed by the British. His wife Elizabeth was also imprisoned, torturing her by means of starvation, and even denying her a change of clothes. Mrs. Lewis’s experiences in British captivity lead to her death in 1779.
Philip Livingston
Philip Livingston was a wealthy businessman, amassing his fortune via trade in the British West Indies. Livingston used his personal wealth for organizing the first New York Public Library in 1754. Furthermore, Livingston was a major proponent for founding Kings College, now Columbia College, the oldest undergraduate school of Columbia University in New York City. He also founded New York’s first Chamber of Commerce in 1770.
Livingston despite his business ties with the British, was a delegate at the pre-revolution Stamp Act Congress, assembled in protest to the highly unpopular Stamp Act passed by British parliament in 1765. Livingston’s personal involvement in the Stamp Act Congress was his initial act of formal protest against the Crown; an act of rebellion growing eventually to his signing the Declaration of Independence.
As thanks for his earlier work for the Crown, Livingston had his home in Kingston, New York used as a British barracks while his residence in Brooklyn Heights was utilized as a British Army hospital.
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William Hooper
William Hooper, an eminent lawyer from South Carolina, was a late-comer to the cause of colonial independence from Great Britain. Considered a Loyalist due to his past collaboration with the British colonial government, Hooper eventually won over the skeptics at the Continental Congress.
Hooper’s Loyalist past was not forgotten by his former friends, however. The British tried to apprehend Hooper throughout the conflict. When the British captured Wilmington, Hooper became separated from his family. All while the incoming troops destroyed his estates in Finian and Wilmington, North Carolina.
It wasn’t until one year later, after relying heavily on the support of friends and neighbors, Hooper was able to reunite with his family in Hillsborough, North Carolina, only then able to begin rebuilding his law practice and his life.
Edward Rutledge
Edward Rutledge, like his older brothers John and Hugh, studied the law in Britain; successfully passing the bar in England before returning to his home of Charleston, South Carolina where he was a practicing attorney.
Rutledge served along with his brother John as a representative of South Carolina at the Continental Congress. Edward Rutledge, at 26, was the youngest signatory to the Declaration of Independence.
Rutledge’s youth did not spare him serious repercussions for his acts of rebellion against the Crown. Rutledge was captured by the British at the Siege of Charleston. Edward Rutledge spent over a year in British captivity, eventually releasing him as part of a prisoner exchange.
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Thomas Hayward Jr.
A South Carolina native, Thomas Hayward travelled abroad to England to receive his training in law and to pass the bar. Hayward upon his return, was elected to the Continental Congress for South Carolina and signed the Declaration.
Following a brief time as judge, Hayward took up arms to lead a militia force but was ultimately taken prisoner by the British at the Siege of Charleston.
Arthur Middleton
Arthur Middleton was Cambridge educated, traveling widely in Europe before participating in any revolutionary function. Middleton was voted to succeed his father as delegate in the Continental Congress, thereby eventually becoming a signatory of the Declaration.
Following the start of the war, Middleton served in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina. There he was subsequently captured by the British in 1780 at the Siege of Charleston. Middleton was sent as a prisoner to St. Augustine, Florida – joining the aforementioned Edward Rutledge and Thomas Hayward, Jr. Middleton was released by prisoner exchange the next year.
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Lyman Hall
Originally from Connecticut, Lyman Hall migrated first to South Carolina and then to Georgia after exchanging the pulpit for a doctor’s bag. The town in which Hall settled, Sunbury, sent him as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress, as Georgia had not been represented in the first. As such, Hall signed the Declaration, one of three physicians to do so.
For Hall and his town’s trouble to get Georgia included in that famous delegation, Sunbury – located in St. John’s Parish – was burned to the ground by British troops, forcing Hall and his family to flee north until the end of the conflict.
The Declaration of Independence and Remembering Those Who Paid the Ultimate Price
In this week where each American takes to the best of summer, we also reflect upon the deeds of those figures that gambled everything to achieve a better form of governance. We hear a great deal about Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin. However it must never be forgotten that fate and history were far better to these men than many of their compatriots. While the price was high for many of these revolutionaries, they managed to remarkably hang together throughout this struggle. For if they had not, they most definitely would have hung separately. To them and all who have followed in the American experiment, may we never find our gratitude lost to posterity.
Kristen E. Strubberg contributed to this article
Write to Paul K. DiCostanzo at pdicostanzo@tgnreview.com