AMERICA250 | Founders’ foresight fosters future freedom

From John Hancock to George Walton, the battle-tested signers lost kin & property & lives to create a nation built on liberty

The Dakota Scout holds these truths to be self-evident: We are all created equal, life, liberty and property remain unalienable rights, and the United States of America is still history’s best example of these virtues being reflected by people through representative government. We celebrated America’s enduring spirit with a June 26 special section focusing on the 56 men who risked life, liberty and treasure 250 years ago in signing OUR Declaration of Independence.

These 56 vignettes about the signers offer a glimpse of their significance — plus details you didn’t learn in school. Go to TheDakotaScout.com to read more Revolutionary content through July 4.

John Trumbull’s famous “Declaration of Independence” painting depicts the Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration to Congress on June 28, 1776. Only 42 people are in the painting because not all signers were present. Trumbull didn’t paint the famous scene until 1819, and in 1826 it was displayed to the U.S. Capitol rotunda, where it remains today. The image was added to the back of the $2 bill in 1976 to celebrate America’s bicentennial.

After John Hancock, the Declaration was endorsed by state from north to south. The bio of each signer appears in order of signing, accompanied by paintings of each grouped by colony.

More content from The Scout’s America250 coverage

• The Declaration’s truths still reverberate across U.S., around the world

• Test your 1776 knowledge about the Founding in our semiquincentennial quiz

• The men who risked all to declare liberty deserve our thanks

• The full online edition of the special section

John Hancock

On May 24, 1775 (after the battles of Lexington and Concord), Hancock, a merchant, was unanimously elected the second president of the Continental Congress. For that reason, John Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence and penned his name larger than the other delegates, famously making his name an American synonym for “signature.” He presided over the nomination of George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

An orphan, Hancock was raised by his uncle and aunt, and it was his uncle’s business through which he gained his great wealth (which was, essentially, smuggling, particularly wine; this was a violation of the Navigation Acts). Hancock freed his uncle’s slaves.

His nephew Josiah Quincy III was Boston mayor (1823–28), president of Harvard (1829–45) and U.S. congressman from Massachusetts (1805–13).