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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?
(SOURCE OF ARTICLE: WWW.BRIAN-WILSON.COM)
Five signers were captured by the British and brutally tortured as
traitors. Nine fought in the War for Independence and died from wounds or from
hardships they suffered. Two lost their sons in the Continental Army. Another
two had sons captured. At least a dozen of the fifty-six had their homes
pillaged and burned.
What kind of men were they? Twenty five were lawyers or jurists. Eleven
were merchants. Nine were farmers or large plantation owners. One was a
teacher, one a musician, and one a printer. These were men of means and
education, yet they signed the Declaration of Independence, knowing full well
that the penalty could be death if they were captured.
In the face of the advancing British Army, the Continental Congress fled
from Philadelphia to Baltimore on December 12, 1776. It was an especially
anxious time for John Hancock, the President, as his wife had just given birth
to a baby girl. Due to the complications stemming from the trip to Baltimore,
the child lived only a few months.
William Ellery's signing at the risk of his fortune proved only too
realistic. In December 1776, during three days of British occupation of
Newport, Rhode Island, Ellery's house was burned, and all his property
destroyed.
Richard Stockton, a New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice, had rushed back
to his estate near Princeton after signing the Declaration of Independence to
find that his wife and children were living like refugees with friends. They
had been betrayed by a Tory sympathizer who also revealed Stockton's own
whereabouts. British troops pulled him from his bed one night, beat him and
threw him in jail where he almost starved to death. When he was finally
released, he went home to find his estate had been looted, his possessions
burned, and his horses stolen. Judge Stockton had been so badly treated in
prison that his health was ruined and he died before the war's end. His
surviving family had to live the remainder of their lives off charity.
Carter Braxton was a wealthy planter and trader. One by one his ships were
captured by the British navy. He loaned a large sum of money to the American
cause; it was never paid back. He was forced to sell his plantations and
mortgage his other properties to pay his debts.
Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he had to move his family
almost constantly. He served in the Continental Congress without pay, and kept
his family in hiding.
Vandals or soldiers or both looted the properties of Clymer, Hall,
Harrison, Hopkinson and Livingston. Seventeen lost everything they owned.
Thomas Heyward, Jr., Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton, all of South
Carolina, were captured by the British during the Charleston Campaign in 1780.
They were kept in dungeons at the St. Augustine Prison until exchanged a year
later.
At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British
General Cornwallis had taken over the family home for his headquarters. Nelson
urged General George Washington to open fire on his own home. This was done,
and the home was destroyed. Nelson later died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis also had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed
his wife for two months, and that and other hardships from the war so affected
her health that she died only two years later.
"Honest John" Hart, a New Jersey farmer, was driven from his
wife's bedside when she was near death. Their thirteen children fled for their
lives. Hart's fields and his grist mill were laid waste. For over a year he
eluded capture by hiding in nearby forests. He never knew where his bed would
be the next night and often slept in caves. When he finally returned home, he
found that his wife had died, his children disappeared, and his farm and stock
were completely destroyed. Hart himself died in 1779 without ever seeing any
of his family again.
