The signatories to the
Declaration of Independence
Although the Declaration of Independence is officially dated
from the fourth of July 1776 it was actually signed into formal
existence from 2 August of that year. The delay
largely arising from the technical processes involved in the
preparation, on parchment, of the Declaration of
Independence.
The actual process of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence began on 2 August. The first of the
signatories was John Hancock, the President of the Congress, who
signed, in bold, below the text and in the centre of the
Declaration. Other delegates, starting with those from the
northernmost state - New Hampshire - and continuing unto the
southermost state - Georgia - then began to sign. There were to
be in all fifty-six signers, not all of these signed on
2 August. Two delegates that had actually voted in
assent on the fourth of July did not, in the event, sign at
all!!! One of these John Dickinson seems to have demurred in the
hope of a reconciliation with Great Britain, the other, Robert R.
Livingston, one of the Committee of Five, seems to have thought
that the Declaration was premature.
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence the new
established "States of America" were represented as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine,
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John
Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton,
George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George
Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter
Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur
Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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