I woke up this Independence Day thinking about the people who were living in the original 13 Colonies on July 4 1776.
Some folks were old, some were teenages, some were toddlers.
Some were parents...who probably wondered what this news would mean for the future of their children.
Some of the people who were "there"...and how old they were on the fateful July 4 1776, and whose DNA are now shared by my own children were:
James Spriggs was 42 years old and living in Maryland.
Reason Spriggs was 10 years old and living in Maryland
Edmond Dedmon was 42 years old and living in Maryland
Comfort Dedmon was 18 years old and living in Maryland
James Sullivan* was 17 years old and living in South Carolina
James Foxworthy was 16 years old and living in Virginia
Lucinda Tippett was 16 years old and living in Virginia
Joshua Hays was 19 years old and living in New York
Martha Loyd was 15 years old and living in New York
Elijah Gray was 7 years old and living in Pennsylvania
Mary Moore was 5 years old and living in Pennsylvania
Benjamin Amos was 2 years old and living in Maryland
Katherine Wyley was 2 years old and living in Pennsylvania
David Moore was 32 years old and living in Virginia
Nancy Moore was 42 years old and living in Virginia
Abigal Clement was 31 years old and living in New Hampshire
Sarah Bannister was 32 years old and living in New York
John Foxworthy was 49 years old and living in Virginia
Simon Weatherman 2 years old and living in North Carolina
Eli McDaniel was 7 years old and living in North Carolina
Timothy Dustin was 33 years old and living in Massachusetts
Richard Morden was 6 years old and living in New York
George Lasher was 7 years old and living in New York
Phillip Nottingham was 26 years old and living in Maryland
Ebenezer Newell was 31 years old and living in Massachusetts
Elizabeth Corbin was 26 years old and living in Maryland
Benjamin Fenno was 27 years old and living in Massachusetts
A few people I know were there, but I either do not know what colony they were living in at the time or how old they were:
Samuel Fenno was 60
David Sutherland was 22
Sarah Northcut was 35
William Basham was 66
Eliz Griffen was 6
Phillip Haseltine
Thomas Gillespie
Nathaniel Wyley was in Pennsylvania
Elizabeth Wood was in South Carolina
Joel Odor was in Virginia
Jane Fletcher was in Virginia
*James Sullivan went on to fight as an adult in the Revolutionary War.
How did they learn the news?
What part did they and their family play in the battles for freedom that followed?
Something I hope to research...some day I hope to know...some day I hope I will meet some of these people in heaven and hear what they remembered about that day first hand.
I hope years from now I can tell them that the Nation was still OK when I left it...
9 comments:
Quite a legacy! Yes, we hope all will be well when it's our turn to leave, too.
Wow...quite the documented history! I too hope that you can tell them the nation was still OK when you left it.
Happy Independence Day, 2012!
How interesting. I've always wondered if I had anybody connected to that war. Possibility exists of a man named Robert Harper. He was 'there' at the time so perhaps. I tried to find out one time and do you know how many Robert Harpers there were at that time in the country?
Those connections, back through time, are precious. I, too, have a connection to 1776, but it is through ancestors who moved North from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia - United Empire Loyalists, or Loyalists, as they were called.
I had family in that war. If you can trace your lineage on paper to that time period the Daughters of the American Revolution have some nice scholarships for descendents.
Intriguing thoughts for the day... So very neat to have so many names from that time. I have only one branch that goes back that far.
Poingnant, Jill. I've sometimes wondered this too, with my own ancestors who were here in those days...mostly in Virginia and a decade or so later (before the War of 1812, my branch of the family moved to Kentucky and then Ohio...)
Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July celebration! We celebrated Canada Day - July 1 - in a very quiet manner. We had company with little kids so we all went to bed early! :) It was a good day!
we sometimes forget to think of those in the past as real live people living day to day lives as we do. My ancestors (my great, great grandmother - a widow with her 8 children)came over from Scotland and settled here on the Island in the 1850s. Not so far back as your people.
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