Lesson 48 Little known facts about the Declaration of Independence
The Second Continental Congress adopted it that day, but the 56 representatives did not take up the quill pen until August 2...nearly a month later.
John Dunlap the official printer of Congress, worked all night and into the morning of July 5 to produce the "broadside" a large single-sided sheet, similar to a poster.
2. The only names that appear on the first copy are those of John Hancock, Congress president, and secretary Charles Thomson.
3. Thomas Jefferson was just 33 years old when he wrote the declaration but already a well-known and accomplished writer. He received help from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to draft the revolutionary document he called "an expression of the American mind."
Jefferson left explicit instructions that he wanted his gravestone to be inscribed, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.
4. The U.S. Congress commissioned John Trumbull in 1817 to make a painting of the signers but it does not include all the men that signed the declaration
5. The signers knew what they were doing might cost them their lives
Benjamin Rush, representative of Pennsylvania, wrote their action "was believed by many at the time to be our own death warrants." The British did target the Founding Fathers, destroying and looting many of their homes.
There is a story that John Hart of New Jersey, who after coming out from hiding, returned home to find his children missing. Most of his 13 children were grown so he didn't lose them. Two of the minors went to a family nearby while John hid, then everything went back to normal.
His house and farm were damaged but not destroyed
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