Fallen Founder and Battle at Fort Wilson

      Walking around the churchyard of Christ Church in Philadelphia wont take you very long, but it is however a walk back in time.  In this small yard are the final resting place of two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and four Signers of the U.S Constitution (Robert Morris and James Wilson signed both!).  Along the outside wall of the church is a lonely ground marker which is all that remains of the final resting place of another fallen founding father, James Wilson.  Just like Robert Morris (and it is kind of funny that they both lie at rest only yards away from each other in the same churchyard), James Wilson ended up a poor man and spent time being chased by debt collectors and spending time in the institution known as Debtor's prison because of his shady land dealings.  Just like Morris again, Wilson was one of only six men who signed both the Declaration and Constitution.

Wilson was a Scotsman, and a very learned Scotsman at that.  Before moving to the Pennsylvania Colony he had studied at three different Universities in his home country.  Wilson wasn't done learning however, after giving up a teaching position he moved into law, apprenticing at the Law Firm of another later member of the Continental Congress John Dickinson.  After passing the bar, Wilson moved out of Philadelphia into rural Pennsylvania and started taking mostly cases involving land disputes.  This is where the 'land bug' struck and Wilson used a lot of the information he learned from his cases and got into land speculation.  This land bug never left Wilson and would ultimately be his downfall.

Wilson started to make a lot of money in these land deals, purchasing land on credit and on the cheap, then reselling it for a huge profit.  He was in fact one of this countries first flippers, if he was still around today he would probably have his own TV show on HGTV, probably called something like "Wilson Knows Best'.  Soon he had all of the spoils that come from wealth in the 18th Century, a new home, a beautiful wife, a slave, and some money saved up.  He became more and more well known, and soon he was selected for positions of power.  In May 1775, he was selected to represent Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress.

Wilson voted for Independence along with Franklin and Morton on July 2, Morris had excused himself from the vote allowing the vote to be unanimous.  Now we get into the interesting part of the blog I like to call, Is it Real, Or Is it Legend!!!

According to legend (and the Revolution produced a lot of these legends), Wilson's home was attacked by the British while he defended it from the inside.  This is however, a myth, the British never attacked Wilson's home, especially not with Wilson in it.  However, the people of Philadelphia did attach Wilson's home.  Philadelphia's Patriots hated Wilson because of his defense of the cities Tory merchants in court, and in 1779 a group of citizens and militiamen angrily attacked Wilson's home which was located at the corner of Third and Walnut Streets.  This altercation came to be known as the Fort Wilson incident, at the end, several men were injured, a few dead, and Wilson left town.

It took a while before Wilson returned to public life, in 1787 he was a major force in helping create the U.S Constitution.  After the Constitution was accepted and George Washington was installed as the first President Wilson thought he was a sure thing for the U.S Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, however, this was given to John Jay.  Wilson, continued to borrow money and continued to purchase land.  Soon the bottom fell out of the land business and when it did Wilson had hundreds of thousands of dollars that he couldn't repay, and so he was chased, hunted, and pursued by creditors looking for repayment, finally ending up in debtors prison.  In 1798 after his release, Wilson died in Edenton, North Carolina where for the longest time he was buried at the home of Justice James Iredell, his bones were finally moved to Philadelphia in 1906.

Morris and Wilson are the only two signers buried in the Christ Churchyard, however, there are four other signers in the Christ Church Burial Ground so that is where I headed next.  

I know it has been a while, so follow me on Twitter @tombtours, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tombtours and on other sites like Tumblr.  I will be posting again real soon, my next Founding Father will be Benjamin Rush!

And now for a BIG announcement!  I am currently in the planning stages of a Founders Podcast, which I plan on releasing very soon.  I will keep you all notified!

First Day of Spring, and Some signers!

Sunshine is truly a wonderful thing!  After the Winter we have had here this year in New Jersey, I am sure that almost the entire state has a bad case of cabin fever!  So when the weather broke on Sunday and the snow started to melt away, I wanted to get out and explore, I finally got my chance yesterday.  This month I am supposed to be working nights, however, a amazing woman at work has been swapping with me so I have been able to work days, also needed Wednesday off and another workmates helped out, so I packed up the two munchkins and this time dropped them off at Daycare and drove to Philly, today was my day!

My first stop was somewhere I had seen and heard about before especially while I worked for Ravenchase, but I had never visited it before.  Christ Church.  Christ Church is a very impressive old Georgian style church located at the very end of Old City on 2nd Street, Philadelphia.  Founded in 1695 and built around 1727 this Episcopalian Church is known (according to its own flyer) as "The Nation's Church" because of the famous people who have worshipped here!  Just the list of Revolutionary-era figures is amazing and include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross (just a side note, while I was visiting today the two people in the gift shop of the church were debating whether or not Betsy Ross was married in the church, apparently they were talking about her THIRD marriage!), Robert Morris, Absalom Jones, Benjamin Rush as well as many others.

My post today is going to focus on one of these men, Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution.  Robert Morris was born on January 20, 1734 in Liverpool, UK however, at a early age he immigrated to Maryland to join his father.  He studied in Philadelphia and was apprenticed to the shipping and banking firm of Philadelphia merchant Charles Willing.  After Charles passed his son Thomas made Morris a partner, Morris married Mary White and together they had five children.  

Morris first entered public office because of the hated Stamp Act of 1765-1766, he was then elected to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, then the Committee of Correspondence, Provincial Legislature and in 1775 was selected to attend the Second Continental Congress.  At first Morris voted against declaring independence from Briton, however, when he saw which way the wind was blowing he 'excused' himself from the vote and Pennsylvania voted yes, he was not shy from signing the Declaration however!

Morris is one of only six me to sign both the Declaration as well as the Constitution and was known as the Financier of the Revolution!  During the war he even paid the countries debt from his own funds, he even personally paid £10,000 to George Washington right before the famous crossing of the Delaware River so that he could pay the Continental Army and keep the Revolution alive.

After the war Morris was the Superintendent of Finance and along with Alexander Hamilton he helped establish the first ever National Bank of the United States.  Morris was not as good as handling his own finances as he was of handing the countries and after the war he invested heavily into land speculation.  When Napoleon started running loose throughout Europe the market for land plummeted and Morris as well as a lot of other people went bankrupt, Morris even had to spend three years in debtors prison!  After being released Morris suffered from poor health until his eventual death on May 9, 1806.

According to Charles Rappleye in his 2010 book 'Robert Morris: Financier of the Revolution' Next to George Washington, Robert Morris was the most powerful man in America. (Page 4)

So that is Robert Morris, a great historical figure that sadly spent his last years in debt, the town of Morrisville in PA is named for him as well as other honors, but he is forced to share eternity with his brother in-law William White in a tomb on the grounds here at Christ Church!

So onto the next one!  Thanks again for reading, follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Tombtours or Twitter @tombtours for more regular posts including additional graves and tombs I have yet to talk about here.

Hopewell and Honest John Hart

Leaving Princeton is like leaving a different world, the homes that surround this amazing town are some of the most magnificent homes you could find anywhere.  The word I like to use to describe them is Palatial (and yes this is a real word, I use it all the time even though my wife did not believe that it was). The further out into the country side of New Jersey you can really see why people love this part of the state, it really is amazing, far away from the Tank Farms and large cities that surround the New Jersey Turnpike.  My last destination for the day (and yes we are still talking about my original mini tour that i started talking about two posts ago) was Hopewell, and more specifically the grave site of John Hart, my third signer of the day.

Hopewell is a old town, dating back as far as the first recorded land purchase of 30,000 acres of land by Daniel Coxe around 1691.  Coxe was the Royal Governor of what was then West Jersey and his aim was to attract settlers from as far off as New England and sell them the land with what could really be called a scam.  Gullible settlers were lured to the area with promises of fertile plain land and vast open areas, instead they got woods and wilderness, hardly great farming land.  However, despite this set back, settlers moved into the area, making it their home, and one of the most prominent families of the time was the Stout family (bet you thought I was going to say Hart family, stay with me, John is coming).  The Stout family help to organize the Old School Baptist Church in 1715, which at the time was refereed to simply as the Baptist Meetinghouse.  This is where John Hart comes into the story, in 1747 Hart donated a plot of land to the Baptists of Hopewell, this land was used to actually build the church structure which still exists today.

Honest John as Hart's friends called him was a popular man, and served some political position since 1750, first as a Freeholder for Hunterdon County and then in the New Jersey Colonial Assembly.  In 1776 he was selected to represent New Jersey at the Second Continental Congress and it was during this time that he voted on and then signed the Declaration of Independence. After signing the Declaration, Hart was a wanted man by the British, and in December 1776, just before Washington made his historic crossing of the Delaware River and successful attack on Trenton, Hart was told the British were coming for him (was Honeyman involved here?  Who is Honeyman?) and Hart fled into the nearby Sourland Mountains and hid in a cave.  The British and the Hessians raided Harts farm looking for him, they tore the farm up but did not destroy it contrary to the email story I mentioned last post!  After the battles of Trenton and Princeton when the British had been forced from the area Hart returned home.

In 1778 Hart invited Washington and the Continental Army to encamp on his farm like any good Patriot should, and so twelve thousand men camped on his fields during the prime growing season!  And that my friends is the brief history of Honest John, we drove through the little town and found the cemetery, however this time we didn't stop, there really wasn't any point, and so with that I pointed the car south and drove home.  So this ends my Wednesday mini tomb tour that really didn't happen (damn snow), I think that I drew this out long enough.

SOCIAL MEDIA ALERT, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @tombtours, Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tombtours where we post a lot of great information.

Referenced

Ege, Ralph 'Pioneers of Old Hopewell' Race & Savage, Hopewell, NJ, 1908. 
Griffiths, Thomas Sharp 'A History of Baptists in New Jersey' Barr Press Publishing Company, Hightstown, NJ, 1904.
Valis, Glenn 'John Hart Signer of the Declaration of Independence' www.doublegv.com/ggv/jhart.html

Witherspoon, Burr and Other Princeton Notables.

So where did I leave off last post, thats right after we had left The Stony Brook Meeting House without seeing the grave of Richard Stockton.  We drove past the Clark House and the Princeton Battlefield, along Mercer Street.  We passed by the little non-descript house that was Albert Einstein's home when he lived in Princeton, and then drove into Princeton proper.  My destination was the Princeton Cemetery, the final resting place of a President's (both of the United States and of Princeton University), a Vice President, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as numerous other notable figures.  This cemetery is open all day long, however it too was covered in snow and so I really could not visit the graves I wanted to, so I picked up a map from the front gate and got ready to leave.

According to the map/brochure Princeton Cemetery was established in 1757 and is still a active cemetery, that is not restricted to members of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.  The cemetery is the final resting place for everyone from soldiers, professors, politicians, musicians, scientists, writers and many more.  In latter posts I will talk about the other people buried here, however, my focus for this trip was to visit my second Declaration Signer, John Witherspoon.  John Witherspoon is the only clergyman and college president to have signed the Declaration as well as one of the few men who were not even born in the colonies.  Born in Scotland in 1723 he was the son of a clergyman (this pretty much settled his career choice), he studied at the University of St Andrews (home of golf though no record shows he ever played, haha) and the University of Edinburgh where he studied divinity.  He was a staunch defender of republicanism and in he was imprisoned in 1746 in Doune Castle because of this belief.  It was because of two other Declaration signers Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton that Witherspoon travelled to the colonies in 1768, he had accepted the post of President and head professor of the small Presbyterian College of New Jersey (now the huge Princeton University).  Witherspoon was an outstanding fund-raiser and used this talent to purchase books and scientific equipment for the school.  

Skip forward many years and Witherspoon transformed that little school into a college that taught some of the countries future leaders, men like Aaron Burr (more about this scoundrel in a few moments), future president James Madison just to name a few.  Witherspoon supported the revolution first by joining the Committee of Correspondence and Safety in early 1774, and then the Continental Congress as part of the New Jersey delegation where he served until 1782, during this time he helped draft the Articles of Confederation and after the war helped support the adoption of the U.S Constitution.  After many years of public service to his adopted country Witherspoon passed away in 1794.  On the grounds of Princeton University is a statue to this great man, and his final resting place among other Presidents of the college is in as I said, Princeton Cemetery.

So Witherspoon would have to be visited another time, and so would Aaron Burr.  I don't want to go into Burr too much right here, I plan on doing a post solely on him one day, but lets just say that he is probably the most interesting man in the cemetery!  I turned the car around without getting out and drove on, this time out of Princeton, heading west along the road, my next destination..... Hopewell!

As usual I have to plug our social media, Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tombtours, Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @tombours, and our Tumblr account http://tombtours.tumblr.com and of course email me at tombtours@gmail.com.

Wednesdays and Richard Stockton!

If you ask almost anyone, I am sure that they would tell you that their favorite day of the week is Saturday.  For me however, my favorite day of the week is Wednesday, hump day, or as I like to call it, home day!  Wednesday's are my scheduled day off from work, and the day that I get to stay home with my two amazing munchkins and have fun!

So last Wednesday we were home as usual, we had played some games, watched some TV, eaten lunch and the kids had both taken naps and we were all bored.  We had been inside all day, so I decided we needed to get out.  I got the munchkins into their coats, hats and car seats and we went out on our own mini Tomb Tour.  I live just outside of Princeton in a township called Hamilton, so I thought I would drive out to Princeton and see if I could visit the resting places of some signers of the Declaration of Independence.  So we drove the Victory Trail (the route Washington took from Trenton to Princeton in the early morning of January 2, 1775).  Our first stop was at the Stony Brook Meeting House, and it was here that I realized the flaw in my plan.  

In the past week, we have had a large amount of snow and places like churchyards, cemeteries are not high traffic areas and out of respect, no one is going to shovel or plow them.  The Stony Brook Graveyard was no exception and was covered in at least 2 inches of snow that had slightly melted and refrozen into a perfect ice sheet that sparkled like diamonds in the late day sun.  However, this also meant I could not enter the graveyard, and so I will have to leave Richard Stockton for another day.

Richard Stockton is a very interesting man, especially if you believe all those "The Price They Paid" emails we all receive around the Fourth of July.  According to that fanciful myth "Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died"(1)  Wow, these men must be all be martyrs right? Well it is true that five signers were captured during the entire time of the Revolution, none of these men however died while British prisioner.  Richard Stockton is the only signer who was taken as a prisoner because he was signer.  He was captured by Loyalist Militants while staying with friends in monmouth County, and taken to Perth Amboy where he was transferred to New York's Provost Jail.  (Kiernan Page 94)  Stockton was treated badly but he was not tortured, he was forced to recant the Declaration and sign a Loyalty Oath to the King.  He later recanted the King's Oath and signed a Loyalty Oath in front of the Continental Congress on December, 1777.  Poor Richard did not live out the revolution and died of cancer in 1781. (Kiernan Page 95)  

So back to me, and my two kids at the Stony Brook Meeting House, we left here, drove past the Clark House and the Princeton Battlefield and into Princeton, our destination, the Princeton Cemetery.  And this is where I will leave this for now.  As usual, Like our Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/tombtours, Follow Us on Twitter and Instagram @tombtours and of course email me any time at tombtours@gmail.com.

Referenced

1.  www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

Kiernan, Denise, and Joseph Agnese. Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence.  Philadelphia: Quirk Book, 2009.  Print.

History, Stories and good old George Clymer.

What is History,  according to the dictionary History is 1.  The study of past events, particularly in human affairs, and 2.  The whole series of past events connected with someone or something.

So let's for the benefit of this post focus on the second definition, the one that states the whole series of past events connected with someone or something.  History is everywhere, from our own homes and family trees to our local museums.  But what about cemeteries, burial grounds and church graveyards, those are big centers of history, after all they are the final resting places of the someone!   

Let me tell you a story, in the center of the city of Trenton, New Jersey in a area that is falling apart with abandoned buildings and a high crime rate is the Friends Burying Ground, located behind the historic Friends Meeting House.  In this small graveyard is a very simple marble and bronze marker erected in 1937 on the final resting place of George Clymer, a single small Stars and Stripes flutters above.  

Who was George Clymer and why is he so important you may ask, not many people really know George, after all he died in 1813, and before 1937 his resting spot was not even properly marked.   However, George is a very important man, he is a member of a very important group known as the Founding Fathers of the United States!  Now everyone has heard of the Founding Fathers, but old George actually got the rough end of the stick, not as famous as Benjamin Franklin, or a future President like John Adams, George however, is a special man.  

George Clymer is one of one six men who are part of a very special club, these men are the only men to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, not even John Adams and Benjamin Franklin are a member of this group.

The Friends Burying ground has other notable burials, Lambert Cadwalader another member of the Continental Congress rests here, Richard Howell, the 3rd Governor of New Jersey is also here and Philemon Dickinson a Major General in the New Jersey Militia and U.S. Senator also calls this place home, and this is just one small cemetery in Trenton.

So what about the other fifty five men who signed the Declaration of Independence, or the thirty eight men who signed the Constitution, where are they buried and what are their stories?

For the longest time, I have loved history.  My Dad gave me a book to read once, I still remember it, it was 'When the Lion Feeds' by Wilbur Smith.  This book is set in South Africa during the Zulu Wars, and I remember devouring all his books, I couldn't get enough, I read up on the Zulu Wars, the Boer War and other South African history.  I moved onto other books, and have not stopped since!  When I moved with my wife to New Jersey, I started reading about the Revolutionary War (after all a lot of big battles happened right here).  I started visiting locations of the battles, historic homes and of course cemeteries, I could not get enough and I know I am not the only one who loves this stuff and so the idea for Tomb Tours was born!

Ok, so enough for now, we have plenty of time to talk.  I will post again really soon, until then follow us on Twitter @tombtours, like our Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/tombtours and if you have any questions comments or concerns please email us at tombtours@gmail.com.