They were a league of extraordinary, ordinary men. They were farmers, printers, doctors, merchants, ministers, lawyers and “speculators” … and a musician. There were no professional politicians among them, with the possible exception of Dr. Franklin, who had served as the emissary of the colonies to the court of St. James.
These then are the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. They laid the keel of the republic. They were the first fruit of the liberty tree. Their fates after signing the document will make a patriot weep: Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or the hardships of the revolutionary war. They had signed, and they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. All honored their pledge.
The Schell family laid the lives of 10 good men upon the alter of liberty in the war that put bone and gristle on the document, and so gained our independence. And I, for one, will never betray their blood sacrifice, or the sacrifices of the extraordinary, ordinary men who began the birth of a new nation. And pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to that end. Never before in the history of the world had a nation been so founded, by the people, for the people and of the people; owing allegiance to none but God.
Norman Schell
Greenfield