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Signers of the Declaration of Independence were proud to be the
When I was a boy, a petition made the rounds in our small town demanding the correction of some glaring blunder of local officials. The administration wasn't going to be happy when the petition came up at the next town meeting and nobody wanted to be the one who delivered the troublesome document so it was mailed without a return address to the town clerk.
Of course it contained several hundred names and if a vindictive official took personal offense he might nurse a grudge against the signers, especially the ones who started the ruckus.
“Remember to never sign a petition at the top,” my father told me. “You might be labeled the chief troublemaker. This petition takes care of that,” he said, and showed me how the signatures were arranged in a big circle so you couldn't figure out where the top was or who signed first.
That wasn't the case with the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress, signed first and in bold script so that King George III wouldn't mistake his name and might increase the price that was already on his head. While Hancock signed on July 4, the 55 others didn't get to sign until Aug. 2, each one aware he might be signing his own death warrant in a long shot gamble on the future of the new nation.
If Great Britain's powerful army and navy suppressed the Revolution, there would be no place for them to hide.
Even though their cause was victorious, many of the signers paid dearly. Nine died of wounds or the rigors of the conflict. Five were imprisoned and 12 had their homes destroyed while others were completely impoverished and the casualties included the wives and children of some.
Of the five New Jersey signers of the Declaration, only Francis Hopkinson, who served in the new government, seems to have survived unscathed.
Abraham Clark had two sons in the Continental Army who were captured and brutally treated by the British.
John Witherspoon, who was president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), saw its buildings and library ruined by the invaders.
John Hart's Pennington farm was overrun and destroyed by the British as he fled and Richard Stockton was captured, physically abused and starved until George Washington arranged a prisoner exchange. Stockton's health was broken and his estate was looted. He died a poor man.
Yet no one betrayed the cause by recanting their approval of the Declaration which bore their oath: “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”
Gene Newman is a resident of Parsippany.
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