Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), 9^th President of the United States

“I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness. And to that good Being who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us write fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time.” – Inaugural Speech, March 4, 1841

William Henry Harrison was born in February 1773 on Berkley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, the youngest of seven children. He was the last president born as a British subject before American Independence. His father was a delegate to the Continental Congress, who signed the Declaration of Independence.

At the age of 14, Harrison entered the Presbyterian Hampden-Sydney College, where he became well-versed in Latin and basic French. He then briefly attended an academy in Southampton County before moving to Philadelphia where he began the study of medicine. Shortly thereafter, his father died leaving him without funds for further schooling.

Governor Henry Lee of Virginia learned of Harrison’s impoverished situation and persuaded Harrison to join the Army. He was first assigned to Cincinnati in the Northwest Territory where the army was engaged in the ongoing Northwest Indian War. After the war, Lieutenant Harrison was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Greenville, which opened much of present-day Ohio to settlement by European Americans.

When he retired from the army, he sought a position in the Northwest Territorial government, where he was appointed Secretary and frequently acted as governor during Governor St. Clair’s absences. He became a delegate to the U. S. Congress representing the territory, but had no authority to vote. Later President John Adams nominated him to become governor of the Indiana Territory, consisting of the future states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and the eastern portion of Minnesota. As the head of the army of Indiana, he participated in the War of 1812.

He entered national politics after being appointed by President James Madison to serve as a commissioner to negotiate two treaties with the Indian tribes in the Northwest. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Ohio, and also served in the Ohio State Senate. President John Quincy Adams appointed him as United States Ambassador to Columbia, but when President Jackson took office, Harrison was recalled to the States.

He spent seven years as a private citizen on his farm in North Bend, Ohio. He made an unsuccessful run for President in 1836, but was successful in a second attempt in 1840. His March 4, 1841, inaugural day was cold and wet and outdoors. He wore neither an overcoat nor a hat, and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history – nearly two hours – after which he rode in an open carriage through the streets in the inaugural parade. By March 26, a cold had turned into pneumonia and pleurisy. His various attempts at cures, including opium, castor oil and leeches only made him worse, and he died on April 4, 1841, having served as President for only 30 days. He was the first president to die in office.

President Harrison was married to Anna Symmes, and together they had 10 children. Despite her own poor health, she outlived her husband by 23 years. President Harrison is buried in North Bend, Ohio.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Martin Van Buren (1782-1861), 8^th President of the United States

“I only look to the gracious protection of that Divine Being whose strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom I fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the dispensations of His Providence to bless our beloved country with honors and lengths of days; may her ways be pleasantness, and all her paths peace.” – Inaugural Address, March 4, 1837

Martin Van Buren was born December 1782 in the village of Kinderhook, New York, about 25 miles south of Albany. He was the first president born a citizen of the United States, as all previous presidents were born before the American Revolution.

Van Buren received a basic education at a dreary, poorly lit schoolhouse in his native village, and later studied Latin at the Kinderhook Academy and Washington Seminary in Claverack. His formal education ended before he reached 14, when he began studying law in the offices of a prominent Federalist attorney in his home town. After six years there, he spent a final year of apprenticeship in a New York law office, and as a result was admitted to the New York Bar.

Van Buren had been active in politics from the age of 17 when he attended a party convention in Troy, New York. He became an early supporter of and campaigner for Aaron Burr. At age 39, he was elected a U.S. Senator from New York. Eight years later he was elected Governor of New York, but his tenure there was short, barely three months, as President Andrew Jackson appointed him Secretary of State. Two years later, President Jackson named him United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Less than two years later, he assumed the office of Vice President of the United States, serving alongside President Jackson.

During the concluding year of the Jackson Administration, Van Buren announced his intention to follow in the footsteps of his “illustrious predecessor,” and was elected President. There was an economic panic in 1837, followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and record-high unemployment levels. His unpopular handling of the nation’s economy resulted in his being a one-term president.

On the expiration of his term, he retired to his estate in Kinderhook, where he planned out his return to the White House. Despite his hard work, his plan failed. He died in the fall of 1861 of bronchial asthma and heart failure. He was 79 years old.

President Van Buren was married to Hannah Hoes, his childhood sweetheart and a distant relative, and they had five sons and one daughter. He is buried at the Kinderhook Cemetery. Van Buren’s faith was Dutch Reform.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), 7th President of the United States

“Finally, it is my most fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that that He will so overrule all my intentions and actions and inspire the hearts of my fellow citizens that we may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue forever a united and happy people.” – From his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1833

Andrew Jackson was born in March 1767 in the Waxhaws area straddling the border between North and South Carolina, to Presbyterian Scotch-Irish colonists who had emigrated from Ireland just two years before he was born. Jackson received a sporadic education in the local “old field” school during the American Revolutionary War. At age thirteen, he joined a local militia as a courier. Jackson was the last U.S. President to have been a veteran of the American Revolution.

After the war, Jackson worked for a time in a saddle-maker’s shop, and later he taught school and studied law. Though his legal education was scanty, Jackson knew enough to be a country lawyer on the frontier of the Southwest Territory, the precursor to the state of Tennessee. He became a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention, and when Tennessee achieved statehood, Jackson was elected its U.S. Representative. He was elected U.S. Senator a year later, but resigned shortly after in order to receive an appointment as judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Besides his legal and political career, Jackson prospered as a slave owner, planter and merchant, acquiring a 640-acre plantation near Nashville known as the Hermitage.

Jackson was distinguished during the War of 1812, as commander of the Tennessee militia with the rank of Major General. He was a strict officer, but was popular with his troops who said he was “tough as old hickory wood” on the battlefield, giving him the popular nickname that would remain with him. He served the militia again in the First Seminole War.

He made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency, and was elected instead to the U.S. Senate, but ran again in 1828 and was elected as the seventh President of the United States. He was the first president to invite the public to attend the White House ball honoring his first inauguration. He was handily re-elected to a second term. During his presidency, he paid off the national debt (the only president to have ever done so). That accomplishment was short-lived, as a severe depression caused a tenfold increase in the national debt within the first year.

Jackson married Rachel Donelson Robards, a divorcee whose papers had not been finalized, so he wound up remarrying her at a later time. He had ten adopted children.

After the presidency, he retired to Nashville and enjoyed eight years of retirement until he died at the Hermitage in 1845 of chronic tuberculosis, dropsy and heart failure. The tomb of Andrew Jackson is located at his home, The Hermitage, in Nashville. He was a Presbyterian.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

James Monroe (1758 – 1831), 5^th President of the United States

“I enter on the trust to which I have been called by the suffrages of my fellow citizens with my fervent prayer to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor.” – Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817

James Monroe was born in April 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His paternal 2^nd great-grandfather immigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17^th century.

Between the ages of 11 and 16, Monroe studied at Campbeltown Academy, where he excelled as a prodigious pupil and progressed through Latin and mathematics at a rate faster than most boys his age. At age 16, Monroe inherited his father’s fortune, and enrolled at the College of William and Mary. The atmosphere on the Williamsburg campus was not conducive to study, however, and the prospect of rebellion against King George charged most of the students, including Monroe, with patriotic fever. By spring, he had joined the Continental army and attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He never returned to college to secure his degree.

Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and served in the Continental Congress. He was elected as a United States Senator from Virginia and served four years until President George Washington appointed him to be the U.S. Ambassador to France. Later Thomas Jefferson named him as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

In 1811, Monroe became the Governor of Virginia, an office he would hold twice but not in succession, for in between he was the U.S. Secretary of State under President James Madison and then Madison appointed him to be the U.S. Secretary of War.

Monroe succeeded Madison and became the fifth President of the United States in 1817. His foreign policy included the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming that the Americas should be free from future European colonization and free from European interference in sovereign countries’ affairs.

At the end of his presidency, Monroe lived at Monroe Hill on the grounds of the University of Virginia. During his years of public life he had racked up many debts, and was forced to sell off the plantation he had inherited from his father. Monroe died of heart failure and tuberculosis on July 4, 1831, becoming the third president to die on July 4^th. He is buried in Richmond, Virginia.

James Monroe was married to Elizabeth “Eliza” Kortright. The Monroes had three children. He had been reared in a family that belonged to the Church of England. As an adult he frequently attended Episcopalian churches, but there is no record he ever took communion there.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), 5^th President of the United States

“May I never cease to be grateful for the numberless blessings received through life at His hands, never repine at what He has denied, never murmur at the dispensations of Providence, and implore His forgiveness for all the errors and delinquencies of my life! … I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service, and knowing that “except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain,” with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence, I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.”

- From his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1825

John Quincy Adams was born to John and Abigail Adams in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1767. Much of his youth was spent accompanying his father overseas, when John Adams was serving as America’s envoy to France and the Netherlands. He acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He spent time in St. Petersburg, Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. During his travels he mastered French, Dutch and German.

He later graduated from Harvard University and apprenticed with a lawyer in Newburyport, Massachusetts, ultimately being accepted to the bar, after which he entered the private practice of law in Boston.

President George Washington named Adams as minister to the Netherlands and then to Portugal. When the elder Adams became president, he appointed his son as minister to Prussia. On his return to the U.S., he was appointed a commissioner of bankruptcy in Boston, tried his hand as a lawyer, and ultimately entered the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts. While a senator, Adams also served as a professor of rhetoric at Harvard University.

President James Madison appointed Adams as the first ever U.S. Minister to Russia in 1809, but when Napoleon invaded Russia, Adams was recalled to the U.S., and then sent to be minister to the Court of St. James (Great Britain).

When James Monroe became president, Adams served as Secretary of State, as was instrumental in the writing of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1824, he ran for and ultimately secured the office of President, although Andrew Jackson had won a plurality of both popular and electoral votes, throwing the matter to the U. S. House of Representatives under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, who voted Adams to victory.

He served as the sixth President of the United States from March 1825 to March 1829. He lost a bid for reelection to Andrew Jackson. He did not retire after leaving office, but instead ran for and was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving for 17 years until his death. Although there is no indication that the two were close, Adams met Abraham Lincoln during the latter’s sole term as a member of the House. It has been suggested that Adams was the only major figure in American history who knew both the Founding Fathers and Lincoln.

He died after collapsing on the floor of the House from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in the Hancock Cemetery across from the First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams were the first father and son to each serve as president (the others being George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush).

Adams was married to Louisa Catherine Johnson, the only first lady not to have been born in America. They had three sons and a daughter. The Adams were Unitarians.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

James Madison (1751-1836), 4^th President of the United States

The source to which I look for the aids which alone can supply my deficiencies is the well-tried intelligence and virtue of my fellow citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispersed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hope for the future.

- Composed for his inaugural ceremonies, March 4, 1809

James Madison, Jr. was born in March 1751 at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia. He grew up as the eldest of twelve children. The family were tobacco planters. He received his early education at the nearby Innes plantation, learning mathematics, geography and modern as well as ancient languages. He became especially proficient in Latin. At age 16, he began a two-year course of study in private tutoring preparing him for college. He enrolled at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), and after graduating there he remained on to study Hebrew, political philosophy and law. He gained admission to the bar.

As a young lawyer, Madison defended Baptist preachers arrested for preaching without a license from the established Anglican Church. He persuaded Virginia to give up claims to northwestern territories, including modern-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and part of Minnesota, to the Continental Congress which then created the Northwest Territory.

Madison was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and then was a delegate to the Continental Congress. Together with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay he wrote the Federalist Papers. Madison is often acknowledged to be the “Architect of the Constitution.” He and Patrick Henry are often credited for a large part of the Bill of Rights amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

During the Jefferson Administration, Madison was the U.S. Secretary of State. In 1808, he was elected the 4^th President of the United States. The War of 1812 and the Second Barbary War both occurred during his presidency. Both Louisiana and Indiana were added as States during his terms in office.

When Madison left office, he retired to Montpelier, his tobacco plantation in Virginia, not far from Jefferson’s Monticello. He died there a few years later, the last remaining Founding Father, and is buried in the Madison Family Cemetery at Montpelier.

Madison was married to Dolley Todd who had one son, John, from a prior marriage. James Madison was known to regularly lead his household in the observance of family devotions. He was an adamant defender of religious liberty. He was most probably a Presbyterian.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3^rd President of the United States

May that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. I shall need, too, the favor of the Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship and approbation of all nations. … We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1805, from A National Prayer for Peace.

Thomas Jefferson was born in April 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, of Welsh, English and Scottish descent. In his early years, he studied at a school run by a local Scottish Presbyterian minister. He studied Latin, Greek and French, and learned the appreciation of nature, while mastering equestrian skills. His father died when he was 14 years old, and he inherited about 5,000 acres of land and dozens of slaves. He built his home there, which eventually became known as Monticello. After his father’s death, he was taught at the school of another minister, receiving a classical education in studies of history and science.

At the age of 16, Jefferson attended the College of William & Mary, studying mathematics, physics and philosophy. Ever learning, he studied John Locke, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, perfected his French, read Tacitus and Homer, and played the violin. After graduating with highest honors, he read law at William & Mary and was admitted to the Virginia bar at age 24. He practiced law, handling more than a hundred cases a year in colonial Virginia.

Besides his law practice, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses where he offered the radical notion that colonists had the natural right to govern themselves. He was not elected to serve in the Virginia delegation of the First Continental Congress, because his views were too radical.

Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in 1776, Jefferson was appointed to a five-man committee to prepare a declaration.

Jefferson served as governor of Virginia for two years, overseeing the transfer of the state capital from Williamsburg to a more central Richmond. Virginia was invaded twice by the British during Jefferson’s term as governor – first by Benedict Arnold and then by Lord Cornwallis. He and Patrick Henry narrowly escaped capture by a British colonel. He later became a delegate from Virginia to the Congress of the Confederation.

In 1785, he was named United States Ambassador to France. Under the presidency of George Washington, Jefferson served as the first United States Secretary of State. When John Adams was elected President, Jefferson became the second Vice President of the United States. He became President in 1801 and served until 1809.

He was married to Martha Wayles Skelton. They had six children, including those who were stillborn or died within a few years of birth. Martha died after the birth of her sixth child, and Jefferson never remarried. He had a long-term relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, and they had six children.

The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged from the orthodox Christianity of his day. He is most closely connected with the Episcopal Church, Unitarianism, and the religious philosophy of Deism. He believed the moral teachings of Christ, but not His miracles. He was quick to acknowledge God as the Bestower of all freedoms upon mankind.

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. He is buried on his Monticello estate.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

John Adams (1735-1826), 2^nd President of the United States

May that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence.

I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise en ever rule under this roof.

- From his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797, and a prayer from a letter to his wife, November 2, 1800

John Adams, Jr., the eldest of three sons, was born in October 1735 in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. He was born into a modest Puritan family, who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s, establishing a colonial presence in America. At age 16, he went to Harvard College. His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams decided to become a lawyer, and studied under a prominent lawyer in Worcester. He was admitted to the bar at an early age.

Adams rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765. He delivered a speech before the governor and council denouncing the Act as invalid on the ground that Massachusetts, without representation in Parliament, had not assented to it. Adams became a delegate to the first and second Continental Congress representing Massachusetts.

On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the resolution of independence, which was adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776. He was appointed to a committee with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson hailed Adams as “the pillar of the Declaration’s support.” When George Washington was elected president, John Adams came in second at the electoral college, and was named Vice President, although he would have preferred to become the nation’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was elected President in 1796. He served a single term.

In his post-presidential years, Adams retired into private life.

Adams was married to Abigail Smith, and they had five children. His faith is listed as Unitarianism, having left the Congregationalist church, rejecting some orthodox doctrines in favor of “rationalism,” but always retaining a strong conviction in life after death.

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Presidential Quote of the Week

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

George Washington (1732-1799), 1^st President of the United States

“O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased they great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul.

Direct my thoughts, words and work, and wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy holy spirit from the dross of my natural corruption, that I may with more freedom of mind and liberty of will serve thee, the everlasting God, in righteousness and holiness this day and all the days of my life.”

From his prayer journal, undated, Mount Vernon.

George Washington was born in January 1732 on his family’s Pope Creek estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Washington’s ancestors were from Sulgrave, England, his grandfather having emigrated in 1657. His father was a slave-owning tobacco planter.

He attended school in Fredricksburg until age 15. He was later somewhat self-conscious that he was less educated than those of his contemporaries who had attended college. He became the official surveyor for Culpeper County. His half-brother, Lawrence, was involved with the Ohio territories, and George was sent there to aid in mapping the region. During the French and Indian War, he went back to Ohio to help protect a fort at present-day Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was captured by the French at Fort Necessity, but allowed to return with his troops to Virginia.

He became the senior American aide to British General Edward Braddock on the ill-fated Monongahela expedition, during which Braddock was mortally wounded in an ambush. Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie gave Washington a commission as “Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and Commander in Chief of all forces of His Majesty’s Colony” and charged him with defending Virginia’s frontier.

Between that war and the Revolutionary War, Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandrige Custis. Together they raised her two children from her previous marriage. They established their household at Mount Vernon, and Washington lived an aristocratic lifestyle – fox hunting being a favored leisure activity. He diversified his farm from its primary tobacco crop, to include wheat and horse breeding.

Although he expressed opposition to the Stamp Act, it was the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 that caused him to attend the First Virginia Convention, at which he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war with the British. He was quickly made Major General and Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

His war accomplishments were difficult, many, and in some cases miraculous. His return to Mount Vernon was short-lived. He attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was elected president of the convention. After the ratification of the Constitution, the Electoral College elected Washington unanimously as the new-born nation’s first president. He remains the only president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes.

He served eight years, and retired once again to Mount Vernon, relieved to be at the place he loved. In less than three years, he had died of a throat infection. The Nation spent months in mourning him. He is interred at Mount Vernon. Throughout his life, Washington was an Anglican (Episcopalian).

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Declaration of Independence Signer

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Charles Carroll (1737-1832), Maryland

Charles Carroll was born in September 1737 in Annapolis, Maryland. His rather remarkable formal education began at the age of 8 when he was packed off to France to attend a Jesuit College at St. Omer. He graduated from the College of Louis the Grande at age 17 and continued practical studies in Europe until, at the age of 28, he returned to his home, into the radical climate produced by the Stamp Act.

Carroll is said to have identified with the radical cause at once, and he proceeded to work in the circles of American patriots. He anonymously engaged the secretary of the colony of Maryland in a series of newspaper articles protesting the right of the British government to tax the colonies without representation.

Carroll was an early advocate for armed resistance with the object of separation from Great Britain. However, his native colony was less certain in this matter and did not even send a representative to the First Continental Congress. Carroll served on the first Committee of Safety at Annapolis, and also in the Provincial Congress. He visited the Continental Congress in 1776 and was enlisted in a diplomatic mission to Canada, along with Franklin and Chase. Shortly after his return, the Maryland Convention decided to join in support for the Revolution. Carroll was elected to represent Maryland on the 4^th of July and, though he was too late to vote for the Declaration, he did sign it.

He served in the Continental Congress, on the Board of War, through much of the War of Independence, and simultaneously participated in the framing of a constitution for Maryland. He was elected to the Maryland Senate, and to the Federal Congress.

He was married to Mary Darnall, known as Molly. They had seven children, but only three survived infancy. The Carrolls of Carrollton were devoutly Roman Catholic. Charles Carroll was the last surviving member of those who signed the Declaration. He died in 1832 at the age of 95.

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