Cost of Liberty

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.  Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.  Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another thad two sone captured.  Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.  

What kind of men were they?  Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.  Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well-educated.  But they signed the Declaration of Independence know full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. 

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy.  He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags. 

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.  He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding.  His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. 

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters.  He quietly urged George Washington to open fire.  The home was destroyed and Nelson died bankrupt. 

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.  The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months, 

John Hart was driven from this wife’s bedside as she was dying.  Their 13 children fled for their lives.  His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste.  For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.