USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of Independence Hall : from the earliest period to the present time : embracing biographies of the immortal signers of the Declaration of Independence, with historical sketches of the sacred relics preserved in that sanctuary of American freedom > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
332
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
evils. But falling in with Doctor Lyman Hall, and a few other decided patriots, his judgment became gradually convinced that some powerful movement was necessary ; and at length he came out before the people, as one of the warmest advocates of unbending resistance to the British Crown. His cultivated mind and superior talents rendered him very popular with the people as soon as he espoused their cause, and every honor in their gift was speedily bestowed upon him. It was in the beginning of 1775, that Mr. Gwinnett openly espoused the cause of the patriots, and the parish of St. John elected him a delegate to the Continental Congress.# In February, 1776, he was again elected a delegate to that body by the General Assembly of Georgia, and under their instruc- tions, and in accordance with his own strong inclina- tions, he voted for the Declaration of Independence, and signed it on the second of August following. He remained in Congress until 1777, when he was elected a member of the Convention of his State to form a Constitution, in accordance with the recommendation of Congress after the Declaration of Independence was made, and the grand outlines of that instrument are attributed to Mr. Gwinnett. Soon after the State Convention adjourned, Mr. Bullock, the president of
At the early stage of the controversy with Great Britain, Georgia, sparsedly populated, seemed quite inactive, except in the district known as the parish of St. John. There all the patriotism of the provinc seems to have been concentrated. The General Assembly having refused to send delegates to the Congress of 1774, that parish separated from the province, and appointed a representative in the Continental Congress. The leaven, however, soon spread, and Georgia gave her vote, in 1776, for independence.
333
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
the council, died, and Mr. Gwinnett was elected to that station, then the highest office in the gift of the people. The civil honors, so rapidly and lavishly bestowed upon him, excited his ambition, and while he was a representative in Congress, he aspired to the possession of military honors also. He offered him- self as a candidate for the office of Brigadier-General, and his competitor was Colonel M'Intosh, a man highly esteemed for his manly bearing and courageous disposition. Mr. Gwinnett was defeated, and with mistaken views he looked upon his rival as a personal enemy .* A decided alienation of their former friend- ship took place, and the breach was constantly widened by the continued irritations which Mr. Gwinnett ex- perienced at the hands of Colonel M'Intosh and his friends. At length he was so excited by the conduct of his opposers, and goaded by the thoughts of having his fair fame tarnished in the eyes of the community, from whom he had received his laurels, that he lis- tened to the suggestions of false honor, and challenged Colonel M'Intosh to single combat. They met with pistols, and at the first fire both were wounded, Mr.
* As we have elsewhere remarked, in the course of these me- moirs, native-born Englishmen were in the habit of regarding the colonists as inferior to themselves, and they were apt to assume a bearing toward them highly offensive. In some de- gree Mr. Gwinnett was obnoxious to this charge, and he looked upon his rapid elevation in public life, as an acknowledgment of his superiority. These feelings were too thinly covered not to be seen by the people when he was president of the council, and it soon engendered among the natives a jealousy that was fully reciprocated by him. This was doubtless the prime cause of all the difficulties which surrounded him toward the close of his life, and brought him to his tragical death.
1
334
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
Gwinnett mortally ; and in the prime of life, at the early age of forty five, his life terminated. He could well have said, in the language of the lamented Ham- ilton, when fatally wounded in a duel by Aaron Burr: " I have lived like a man, but I die like a fool." Mr. Gwinnett left a wife and several children, but they did not long survive him.
LYMAN HALL was born in Connecticut in the year 1721. His father was possessed of a competent for- tune, and he gave his son an opportunity for acquiring a good education. He placed him in Yale College, at the age of sixteen years, whence he graduated after four years' study. He chose the practice of medicine as a profession, and he entered upon the necessary studies with great ardor, and pursued them with per- severance. As soon as Mr. Hall had completed his professional studies, and was admitted to practice, with the title of M. D., he married and emigrated to South Carolina, in 1752. He first settled at Dorchester, but during the year he moved to Sunbury, in the district of Medway, in Georgia, whither about forty New England families, then in South Carolina, accom- panied him. He was very successful in the practice of his profession; and by his intelligence, probity, and consistency of character, he won the unbounded esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Doctor Hall was a close observer of the "signs of the times," and he was among the earliest of the southern patriots who lifted up their voices against British oppression and misrule. The community in which he lived was strongly imbued with the same feeling, for the people brought with them from New England the cherished principles of the Pilgrim Fathers-principles that
5
335
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
would not brook attempts to enslave, or even to de- stroy a single prerogative of the Colonies. The older settlers of Georgia, many of whom were direct from Europe, had these principles of freedom inwoven with their character in a much less degree, and therefore the parish of St. John, wherein Doctor Hall resided, seemed, at the first cry of liberty, to have much of the patriotism of the province centred there. Early in 1774 Doctor Hall and a few kindred spirits, endeav- ored, by calling public meetings, to arouse the people of the province to make common cause with their brethren of the North; but these efforts seemed almost futile. Finally, a general meeting of all favorable to republicanism was called at Savannah, in July, 1774, but the measures adopted there were temporizing and non-committal in a great degree, and Doctor Hall almost despaired of success in persuading Georgia to send delegates to the General Congress, called to meet at Philadelphia in September. He returned to his constituents with a heavy heart, and his report filled them with disgust at the pusilanimity of the other representatives there. Fired with zeal for the cause, and deeply sympathizing with their brother patriots of New England, the people of the parish of St. John resolved to act in the matter, independent of the rest of the colony, and in March, 1775, they elected Doctor Hall a delegate to the General Congress, and he ap- peared there with his credentials on the thirteenth of May, following. Notwithstanding he was not an ac- credited delegate of a colony, Congress, by a unani- mous vote, admitted him to a seat. During the summer, Georgia became sufficiently aroused to come out as a colony in favor of the republican cause, and
336
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
at a convention of the people held in Savannah, in July, five delegates to Congress were elected, of whom Doctor Hall was one. He presented his credentials in May, 1776, and he took part in the debates which ensued on the motion of Mr. Lee for independence. Doctor Hall warmly supported it, and voted for it on the fourth of July. He signed the declaration on the second of August, and soon afterward returned home for a season. Doctor Hall was a member of Congress nearly all the while until 1780, when the invasion of his State, by the British, called him home to look after the safety of his family. He arrived there in time to remove them, but was obliged to leave his property entirely exposed to the fury of the foe. He went north, and while the British had possession of the State, and revived royal authority in the government there, his property was confiscated. He returned to Georgia, in 1782, just before the enemy evacuated Savannah .* The next year he was elected governor
* After the capture of Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown, in 1781, the war virtually ceased. Armies were still on duty, and arrangements were made for regular campaigns the ensuing season ; but unimportant skirmishes in the Southern States made up the bulk of actual hostilities from that time until the proclamation of peace. Georgia was the only rendezvous of the remnant of the British at the South, in the beginning of the year 1782. In June of that year, General Wayne arrived there with a portion of the Pennsylvania line, and the enemy re- treated from all their outposts into Savannah. The State was thus evacuated, and republican authority was re-established. Wayne was attacked within five miles of Savannah, on the twenty-fourth of June, by a party of British and Indians, and in that skirmish Colonel John Laurens was killed. This was the last battle of the Revolution. Cessation of hostilities was proclaimed, and in July the British force evacuated Savannah, and the last hostile foot left the soil of Georgia
337
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
of the State. He held the office one term, and then retired from public life, and sought happiness in the domestic circle. But that was soon invaded by the arch-destroyer. His only son was cut down in the flower of his youth, and the father did not long sur- vive him. He died in the year 1784, in the sixty- third year of his age, greatly beloved and widely lamented .*
GEORGE WALTON was descended from parentage quite obscure, and the glory that halos his name de- rives not a gleam from ancestral distinction-it is all his own. He was born in the county of Frederick, in Virginia, in the year 1740. His early education was extremely limited, and at the age of fourteen years he was apprenticed to a carpenter. He was possessed of an inquiring mind, and an ardent thirst for knowl- edge, but his master's authority hung like a mill-stone about the neck of his aspirations. He was an igno- rant man, and looked upon a studious boy as an idle one, considering the time spent in reading as wasted. With this feeling, he would allow young Walton no time to read by day, nor lights to study by night; but the ardent youth overcame these difficulties, and by using torch-wood for light, he spent his evenings in study. Persevering in this course, he ended his ap- prenticeship with a well-stored mind. He then moved into the province of Georgia, and commenced the study of law in the office of Mr. Young, an eminent barrister
* During the session of the Legislature of Georgia, in 1848, the sum of fifteen hundred dollars was appropriated for the purpose of erecting a lead monument to the memory of Lyman Hall, and George Walton, two delegates from Georgia, who signed the Declaration of Independence.
: 29
338
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
in that Colony. Mr. Walton commenced the practice of law in the year 1774, a time when the Colonies were in a blaze respecting the various acts of the British Parliament which invaded colonial rights. Soon after commencing the practice of his profession, Mr. Walton became acquainted with some of the lead- ing patriots in that province, among whom was Dr. Hall; and they found in him an apt pupil in the school of patriotism. His law tutor was an ardent patriot also ; and these influences, combined with his own natural bias, made him espouse the republican cause with hearty zeal. He boldly opposed the movements of the loyalists, and soon called down upon his head the denunciations of the ruling powers. He labored as- siduously to have the whole province take the road toward freedom, which the parish of St. John had cho- sen, yet his labor seemed almost fruitless. But at length the fruits of the zeal of himself and others began to ap- pear, and in the winter of 1776, the Assembly of Georgia declared for the patriotic cause, and in February ap- pointed five delegates to the Continental Congress. Of these delegates, Mr. Walton was one. The royal governor was so incensed at this daring and treasona- ble act of the Assembly, that he threatened to use mili- tary force against them. But they utterly disregarded his authority, organized a new government, and elect- ed Archibald Bullock president of the Executive Coun- cil. The Congress was in session at Baltimore when he arrived, having adjourned there from Philadelphia, because of the expected attack upon that city by the British under Lord Cornwallis. The confidence which that body reposed in him was manifested three days after his arrival, by his appointment upon a committee
339
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
with Robert Morris and George Clymer, to repair to Philadelphia and act as circumstances might require. This was a post of great trust and danger, and the pow- ers delegated to the committee were almost unlimited ; in their keeping and disposition nearly the whole of the finances of Congress were entrusted. This service was performed with the utmost fidelity. Mr. Walton was favorable to the proposition for independence, and he used all his influence to bring about that result. He voted for and signed the Declaration of Indepen- dence, and the fortune and honor he there pledged were freely devoted to its support. He remained in Congress until near the close of 1778, when he return- ed home, having been appointed by the Legislature col- onel of a regiment in his State, then threatened by an invasion of the enemy from the sea. Colonel Walton hastened to join his regiment, and was there in time to enter the battalion of General Howe,* at Savannah, when Colonel Campbell, from New York, landed there and besieged it. In that engagement he received a se- vere shot wound in his thigh, and he fell from his horse. In this condition he was taken prisoner, but
* This was General Robert Howe, of the American Army. There were three commanding officers by the name of Howe en- gaged in our Revolutionary war: General Robert Howe, just named; General Sir William Howe, of the British army ; and his brother, Lord Howe, Admiral in its navy. At the time in question, General Robert Howe had about eight hundred men under his command, and would doubtless have maintained a successful defense of Savannah, had it not been for a treacherous negro, who pointed out to the enemy a path across a morass that defended the Americans in the rear. By this treachery the Americans were attacked front and rear, and were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war.
-
S
1
340
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
was soon after exchanged .* In October, 1779, the Legislature of Georgia appointed Mr. Walton governor of the State. He did not hold that office long, for in January, 1780, he was again elected to a seat in Con- gress for two years, but in October following he with- drew from that body, and was again elected governor of his State, which office he then held a full term. Near the close of the term, he was appointed by the Legislature, Chief Justice of the State, and he retained that office until his death. In 1798, he was elected a member of the Senate of the United States, where he remained one year and then retired to private life, ex- cept so far as his duties upon the bench required him to act in public. His useful life was terminated in Augusta, Georgia, on the second day of February, 1804, when he was in the sixty-fourth year of his age. Mr. Walton had but one child, a son, who was a great solace to the declining years of his father.t
* He then held the active position of major, with the rank of colonel ; yet being a Member of Congress and guilty of the great offense of having signed the Declaration of Independence, a brigadier-general was demanded in exchange for him. He was finally exchanged for a naval captain.
t When General Jackson was governor of West Florida, Judge Walton's son held the office of Secretary of State, and was re- garded as one of the most estimable men in that territory.
341
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WILLIAM HOOPER-JOSEPH HEWES-JOHN PENN.
WILLIAM HOOPER was born in Boston, Massachu- setts, on the seventeenth day of June, 1742. His father was a Scotchman, and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. Soon after leaving that institution, he emigrated to America, and fixed his residence at Bos- ton, where he was married. William was his first born, and he paid particular attention to his prepara- tion for a collegiate course. He was placed under the charge of Mr. Lovell, then one of the most eminent instructors in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Hav- ing completed his preparatory studies, William was entered a pupil at Harvard University, where he re- mained a close and industrious student for three years, and in 1760 he graduated with distinguished honors. His father designed him for the clerical profession, but as he evinced a decided preference for the bar, he was placed as a student in the office of the celebrated James Otis. On the completion of his studies, perceiving that the profession was quite full of practitioners in Mas- sachusetts, he went to North Carolina, where many of his Scotch relations resided, and began business in that province in 1767. Mr. Hooper formed a circle of very polished acquaintances there, and he soon became highly esteemed among the literary men of the prov-
29*
342
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
ince. He rose rapidly in his profession, and in a very short time he stood at the head of the bar in that re- gion. He was greatly esteemed by the officers of the government; and his success in the management of several causes, in which the government was his cli- ent, gave him much influence.
When, in 1770-71, an insurrectionary movement was set on foot by a party of people termed the " Reg. ulators,"* Mr. Hooper took sides with the government, and advised and assisted Governor Tryon in all his measures to suppress the rebellion. For this, he was branded as a royalist ; and even when he openly advo-
* This movement of the "Regulators," has been viewed in quite opposing lights ; one party regarding them as only a knot of low-minded malcontents, who had every thing to gain and nothing to lose, and who hoped, by getting up an excitement, to secure something for themselves in the general scramble. This was the phase in which they appeared to Mr. Hooper, and thus regarding them, he felt it his duty to oppose them and maintain good order in the State. Others viewed them as patriots, impel- led to action by a strong sense of wrong and injustice, the au- thor of which was Governor Tryon, whose oppressive and cruel acts, even his partisans could not deny. From all the lights we have upon the subject, we cannot but view the movement as a truly patriotic one, and kindred to those which subsequently took place in Massachusetts and Virginia, when Boston harbor was made a tea-pot, and Patrick Henry drove the royal governor Dun- more from the province of Virginia. Governor Tryon was a tyrant of the darkest hue, for he commingled, with his oppression, acts of the grossest immorality and wanton cruelty. Although the " Reg- nlators " were men moving in the common walks of life, (and doubtless many vagabonds enrolled themselves among them), yet the rules of government they adopted, the professions they made, and the practices they exhibited, all bear the impress of genuine patriotism ; and we cannot but regard the blood shed on the occasion by the infamous Tryon, as the blood of the early martyrs of our Revolution.
343
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
cated the cause of the patriots, he was for a time view- ed with some suspicions lest his professions were un- real. But those who knew him best, knew well how strongly and purely burned that flame of patriotism which his zealous instructor, Mr. Otis, had lighted in his bosom; and his consistent course in public life, at- tested his sincerity. Mr. Hooper began his legislative labors in 1773, when he was elected a member of the Provincial Assembly of North Carolina, for the town of Wilmington. The next year he was returned a member for the county of Hanover; and from his first entrance into public life, he sympathized with the op- pressed. This sympathy lead him early to oppose the court party in the State ; and so vigorous was his oppo- sition, that he was soon designated by the royalists as the leader of their enemies, and became very obnox- ious to them. The proposition of Massachusetts for a General Congress was hailed with joy in North Caro- lina, and a convention of the people was called in the summer of 1774, to take the matter into consideration. The convention met in Newbern, and after passing res- olutions approving of the call, they appointed William Hooper their first delegate to the Continental Congress. Although younger than a large majority of the mem- bers, he was placed upon two of the most important committees in that body, whose business it was to ar- range and propose measures for action-a duty which required talents and judgment of the highest order. Mr. Hooper was again elected to Congress in 1775, and was chairman of the committee which drew up an ad- dress to the Assembly of the island of Jamaica. This address was from his pen, and was a clear and able expo- sition of the existing difficulties between Great Britain
344
INDEPENDENCE HALL :
and her American Colonies. He was again returned a member in 1776,* and was in his seat in time to vote for the Declaration of Independence. He affixed his signa- ture to it, on the second of August following. He was actively engaged in Congress until March, 1777, when the derangement of his private affairs, and the safety of his family, caused him to ask for and obtain leave of absence, and he returned home. Like all the oth- ers who signed the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Hooper was peculiarly obnoxious to the British; and on all occasions they used every means in their power to possess his person, harass his family, and destroy his estate. When the storm of the Revolution sub- sided, and the sun-light of peace beamed forth, he re- sumed the practice of his profession, and did not again appear in public life until 1786, when he was appointed by Congress, one of the judges of the federal court es- tablished to adjudicate in the matter of a dispute about territorial jurisdiction, between Massachusetts and New York. The cause was finally settled by commission- ers, and not brought before that court at all. Mr. Hooper now withdrew from public life, for he felt that
* He was at home for some time during the spring of that year, attending two different Conventions that met at North Carolina, one at Hillsborough, the seat of the Provincial Congress, the other at Halifax. The Convention at the former place put forth an address to the people of Great Britain. This address was written by Mr. Hooper ; and we take occasion here to re- mark, that as early as the twentieth of May, 1775, a convention of the Committees of Safety of North Carolina met at Charlotte Court House, in Mecklenburg County, and by a series of resolu- tions, declared themselves free and independent of the British Crown ; to the support of which, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
345
ITS HISTORY AND ASSOCIATIONS.
a fatal disease was upon him. He died at Hillsborough in October, 1790, aged forty-eight years.
JOSEPH HEWES .- The parents of JOSEPH HEWES were natives of Connecticut, and belonged to the So- ciety of Friends, or Quakers. Immediately after their marriage they moved to New Jersey, and purchased a small farm at Kingston, within a short distance of Princeton. It was there that Joseph was born, in the year 1730. He was educated at the college in Prince- ton, and at the close of his studies he was apprenticed to a merchant in Philadelphia, to qualify him for a commercial life. On the termination of his apprentice- ship, his father furnished him with a little money capi- tal, to which he added the less fleeting capital of a good reputation, and he commenced mercantile business on his own account. His business education had been thorough, and he pursued the labors of commerce with such skill and success, that in a few years he amassed an ample fortune. At the age of thirty years, Mr. Hewes moved to North Carolina, and settled in Eden- ton, which became his home for life. He entered into business there, and his uprightness and honorable deal- ings soon won for him the profound esteem of the peo- ple. While yet a comparative stranger among them, they evinced their appreciation of his character, by electing him a member of the Legislature of North Carolina, in 1763, and so faithfully did he discharge his duties, that they re-elected him several consecu- tive years. Mr. Hewes was among the earliest of the decided patriots of North Carolina, and used his influ- ence in bringing about a Convention of the people of the State, to second the call of Massachusetts for a General Congress. The convention that met in the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.