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EdgeLagerthaSeawolf
Have you ever shared w/family what happened to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors & tortured before they died.
Twelve had th... View MoreHave you ever shared w/family what happened to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors & tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked & burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army & one had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought & died from wounds or hardships that stemmed from the Revolutionary War.
Our Founding Fathers signed & pledged their lives, fortunes & their sacred honor.
What did these men do before the war?
Twenty-four men were lawyers & jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers & large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. Yet they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing if captured, the charge would be treason & the penalty would be death.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter & trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home & properties to pay his debts & died in rags.
Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family secretly & regularly. He served in the Congress w/o pay & his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him; poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge & 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 & Nelson died, bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home & properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife & she died w/i 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 & gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests & caves, returning home to find his wife dead & his children gone. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion & a broken heart. Morris (Wrote Preamble) & Livingston suffered similar fates.
These are just a few examples of what they faced & endured for Independence.
These were not wild eyed, hate-filled monsters looting & pillaging their neighbors & local shopkeepers. They were soft-spoken men of means & education. They had security but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight & unwavering, they pledged, "For the support of this declaration, w/firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes & our sacred honor."
Colonists and signers didn't fight the British as Americans. They fought them as British subjects on American soil. Even colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain often lost everything, driven from their homes & the new nation itself.(Nova Scotia largely settled by loyalists.)
Thousands of ordinary Americans suffered too w/many dying for their courage & gave us a free & independent America! #NeverForget
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