Signers of the U.S. Constitution. How Many Can You Name?
On July 4th 2009, I was delivering delayed luggage out of Logan Airport. While waiting for the last flight to arrive, I decided to ask my colleagues how many signers of the Declaration of Independence they could name. I gave them a monetary incentive of $20. My past experiences with asking this question convinced me that my money was safe. I was right. The most I got from any co-worker was three. My firsthand experiences over the years show that my suitcase colleagues are on par with most Americans. However, I recently shared my suitcase story with a group of 5th graders from the Lion Heart Classical Academy in Peterborough who were attending the 1st annual Patriot Youth Program hosted by the New Hampshire Daughters of the American Revolution at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, NH. I asked the fifth graders the same question, and one young man said “John Adams, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Frankin, and John Hancock.” He then asked me for $20 I told him I only had two dollars in my pocket but offered him a week at our annual family camp worth $300. His dad was in hand and said that he would take us up on the offer. Meanwhile, retired Army Colonel Otto Busher, who was part of the program, handed the boy $20.
Does it matter if the average American can’t name five signers of the Declaration of Independence? With the exception of the Cultural Marxists and those they have convinced to hate American and its incredible history, most Americans love to celebrate Independence Day. Yes, even in Boston where tens of thousands of people of all races come out to the Esplanade and listen to Patriotic music performed by the Boston Pops, wave Old Glory, and watch the fireworks. So, yes, Americans should know a little about the day they are celebrating and the brave men who made that day and our nation possible.
There were fifty-six men that signed the Declaration of Independence. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, Not one defected. Not one “matured politically.” While there is some dispute, it is widely believed that John Hancock was the only delegate to sign the Declaration of July 4th. It wasn’t until August 2 that the majority of the delegates signed the Declaration. New Hampshire’s Dr. Matthew Thornton was one of the last signing it on November 4th, 1776. While I won’t give a biography of all 56, I will give a short bio of our state’s signers and recommend the book Lives of Signers of the Declaration of Independence originally published in 1850 and reprinted by Wall Builders:
New Hampshire had three signers: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton.
(Dr. Josiah Bartlett)
Josiah Bartlett was born in Amesbury, MA on November 29, 1729. He became a doctor at the age of 21 and moved to Kingston, NH. He and his wife Mary had 12 children. He was elected to the office of justice of the peace but in 1774, the governor, appointed by the King, had him removed from the position due to his involvement with the Committee of Correspondence. In 1775, Bartlett became a colonel in the New Hampshire Militia, and became a member of the 2nd Continental Congress that same year. He voted for independence on July 4th, being the first delegate to do so. He signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2 and may have been the 2nd one after John Hancock. During the war, he served as a physician treating wounded soldiers. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and as a supporter of the new Constitution, he serves as a delegate to New Hampshire’s Ratification Convention. He became the 1st governor of New Hampshire in 1793. He passed away in 1795, and is buried in the Plains Cemetery in Kingstown, NH
William Whipple
Born in Kittery, Maine 1730 which was part of Massachusetts at the time, he became a ship captain. He became a delegate to the 2nd Continental Congress and signed of the Declaration of Independence. He served as a brigadier general in the New Hampshire. Militia. He led his soldiers in the Battle of Saratoga. He freed his slave Prince who served with him during the war. Prince was depicted in the painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze, but it was historically inaccurate since he was not involved with the crossing. After the war, he became a New Hampshire judge on the state’s supreme court. He died in November of 1785 and is buried in North Cemetery Portsmouth, NH.
(Prince Whipple)
Matthew Thornton
Born in Ireland on 1714, he came to America when he was four. He and his family settled in Worcester, MA, and he, like Josiah Thornton, became a doctor. He settled in Londonderry, NH. He and his wife Hannah had five children. In 1745, he served a surgeon in the Battle of Louisburg in Nova Scotia. He became a member of New Hampshire’s colonial legislature and in 1775, he became president of New Hampshire’s provincial congress. He became a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and while he wasn’t present on July 4, he signed the Declaration on November 4, 1776, being one of the last to do so. Like Josiah Bartlett, he became an associate justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Late in life, he published Paradise Lost, or the Origin of the Evil called Sin. He died in 1803 while visiting his daughter in Newburyport, MA. He is buried in Thornton Cemetery, Merrimack, New Hampshire.
One of my favorite Founding Father’s was John Adams who was the main driving force behind the Declaration of Independence, prior to the vote for independence, he made this speech:
Sink or Swim, Live or Die, Survive or Perish, I give my heart and my hand to this vote. It is true indeed that in the beginning we did not aim for Independence, but there is a Divinity that shapes our ends. Why then should we defer the declaration? You and I indeed may rue it. We may not live to see the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die Colonists or die Slaves. Be it so, be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure and it may cost blood, but it will stand and richly compensate for both. Through the gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, like the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious and immortal day. When we are in our graves our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving and festivities, with bonfires and illuminations.
Before God I believe that the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am, and all that I hope in this life I am now ready to stake on it and leave off as I began. Live or die, survive, or perish, I am for this declaration. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God it will be my dying sentiment. Independence now, Independence forever.
May the readers of this blog have a Happy Independence Day. Readers who would like a free pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution containing the Declaration of Independence may send me an E-mail campconstitution1@gmail.com
P.S. Question: What other countries have a July 4th? Answer: They all do.
Video: The urban heat island – implications for global warming & climate change by Benjamin Soon
This video was created by Benjamin Soon, a veteran Camp Constitution camper and son of Camp Constitution instructor Professor Willie Soon.
Most people today live in urban areas, including cities. Cities tend to be hotter than their surrounding rural areas. This means that the local climate change experienced by most people is different from the global climate changes experienced by the rest of the world. City dwellers are experiencing more heat waves, earlier springs, and milder winters than everyone else.
What are the implications of the urban heat island (UHI) effect for our current understanding of global climate change and global warming?
In this video, we compare rural and urban weather station data to explain “urbanization bias” in cities along with possible solutions to urban heating.
Relevant links
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For the relevant discussion on urban heat islands in the IPCC’s latest (2021) assessment report, see Section 2.3.1.1.3 “Temperatures during the instrumental period – surface” in Chapter 2 of Working Group 1’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-2/
Papers referenced in the video:
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W. Soon, R. Connolly, M. Connolly, S.-I. Akasofu, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, A. Bianchini, W.M. Briggs, C.J. Butler, R.G. Cionco, M. Crok, A.G. Elias, V.M. Fedorov, F. Gervais, H. Harde, G.W. Henry, D.V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D.R. Legates, A.R. Lupo, S. Maruyama, P. Moore, M. Ogurtsov, C. ÓhAiseadha, M.J. Oliveira, S.-S. Park, S. Qiu, G. Quinn, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, J. Steele, L. Szarka, H.L. Tanaka, M.K. Taylor, F. Vahrenholt, V.M. Velasco Herrera and W. Zhang (2023). “The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data”, Climate, 11(9), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11090179. Open access.
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R. Connolly, W. Soon, M. Connolly, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, C.J. Butler, R.G. Cionco, A.G. Elias, V. Fedorov, H. Harde, G.W. Henry, D.V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D.R. Legates, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, L. Szarka, V.M. Velasco Herrera, H. Yan and W.J. Zhang (2023). “Challenges in the detection and attribution of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature trends since 1850”. Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/acf18e. (🗄️). Supplementary Materials.
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R. Connolly, W. Soon, M. Connolly, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, C. J. Butler, R. G. Cionco, A. G. Elias, V. M. Fedorov, H. Harde, G. W. Henry, D. V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D. R. Legates, S. Lüning, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, L. Szarka, H. van Loon, V. M. Velasco Herrera, R. C. Willson, H. Yan and W. Zhang (2021). How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate. Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 21, 131. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131. (🗄️)
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W. Soon, Ronan Connolly and M. Connolly (2015). Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century. Earth-Science Reviews, 150, 409-452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.08.010. (🗄️).
Persecuted Christians in the United States and Around the World, And Slavery is Alive and Well
Camp Constitution Speakers Bureau hosted speaking engagements for William Brown of Save the Persecuted Christians, Philip Zodhiates, author of Innocent The Price One Man Paid For Doing What Is Right, and Getch Dires. Mr. Brown discussed the persecution of Christians around the world and the Biden Administration’s indifference to Chrisitan persecution. Mr. Zodhiates discussed his ordeal with the Obama Administration’s case against him and his experience serving a three-year jail sentence in a federal prison for the “crime’ of driving a mother and daughter to an airport so the mother could leave the United States to protect her daughter from sexual abuse, and Getch Davis, originally from Ethiopia, discussed how slavery is alive and well in many African nations with the full knowledge of Black leaders in Africa.
Special thanks to Pastor Bob and Pamela Andrews of the First Parish Congregational Church of Lebanon, Maine and Pastor Jared and Noel Cassidy of the Community Church of Alton, NH:
Camp Constitution’s 16th Annual Family Camp Less Than Three Weeks Away: Schedule Posted
Camp Constituion’s 16th annual family camp is less than three weeks away-July 14-19. We still have a few rooms available for families and spaces for unaccompanied minors, but we expect to fill up quickly.
We posted the general schedule and classes for the teenagers and adults: https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Camp-Constitution-Schedule-2024.pdf The schedule for the junior campers should be posted soon.
Since 2010, we have videotaped classes and activities at our annual camps and posted them on our YouTube channel. Our videographer Mert Melfa does an excellent job uploading them as soon as he can. Here is a link to last year’s classes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7jnzBzBiNYCL7qVjIiaEvWVSeA-YMLPO And don’t forget to subscribe to our channel. We are closing in on 15k subscribers.
Unable to attend this year’s annual camp? We have a weekend family camp coming up at Camp Sentinel in Tuftonboro, NH Friday September 27 to Sunday September 29:
The Weekly Sam: Germany 1933, America 2008
Something very eerie is happening in America as we appear to be on the verge of a radical political upheaval. Huge numbers of people are mindlessly following a demagogue who promises us “change,” but is not very specific about the kind of change he is planning. He is a young man whose mother hated American culture so much that she married a Kenyan Muslim, who fathered Barack, returned to Kenya, became a bureaucrat and was killed in a car accident. His mother then married an Indonesian Muslim and they went to live in Indonesia. This young politician, only in his forties, has, with charisma and oratorical bombast, hypnotized multitudes with his promises. In 1933, most Germans voted for a demagogue who promised “change” and seemed to be the answer to their economic and national problems.
He blamed Germany’s ills on the Jews but didn’t say how he would get rid of them. But what they did get from their new leader was religious persecution, a horrendous world war, and destruction. None of those voters in 1933 could have foreseen what they would get only six years later. The young followers of Barack Obama have been well-indoctrinated by our public schools to accept slogans rather than actual substance. They know little history, little geography, and a good portion of them are not book readers. In fact, the National Endowment for the Arts recently issued a report on the precipitous decline in literary reading among young Americans. They respond to Obama because he appeals to their emotions rather than their intellects, which they sorely lack. Of this new generation of non-readers, the Endowment Chairman, Dana Goia, stated: “This is a massive social problem.
We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.” And so we find high emotion running through the crowds that seem to be viewing Barack Obama as some sort of Savior. He will chase the “special interests” out of the Congressional temple. He will bring all of us together. He will end the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the country is lurching toward recession. But these impressionable and innocent followers are told that they are important and can make a difference by simply voting for the most seductive young demagogue to come down the pike. That he is the most liberal Senator in Congress doesn’t seem to resonate. That he belongs to a liberal Christian church in Chicago that is sympathetic toward Louis Farrakhan, doesn’t bother them. And so, why question him about his religion or his views on Islam? Yes, he did attend an Islamic school as a child while living with his mother and step-father in Indonesia. But so what. Back in Germany in 1933, when the demagogue was elected, the Jews assumed that the good German people would soon get rid of this hateful soul and his followers. They had been so successfully integrated in German cultural and economic life, that it seemed incredible they would be subject to literal extermination. We need not reiterate what that demagogue did until he was brought down by the most powerful armies ever assembled in world history. Of course, America in 2008 is nothing like Germany in 1933. The only similarity is the deep political crisis, a restless, semi-hysterical electorate not knowing what it wants, and the inability to predict what the new leader will do when in the White House. Will there be persecution of Christians? If the new regime passes a hate-crimes bill, which Bush threatened to veto, it will be a crime for a minister to quote the Bible on a number of well known “intolerant” passages. Christians will be required to accept gay marriage and the gay agenda in the public schools. As for future Supreme Court judges, we are likely to get nominees as left-wing as the new President. As for our military security, what kind of Commander-in-Chief will either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton make? Both of them believe in defeat. The word victory will be stricken from our military’s vocabulary. The uncertainty about the future is what is making this election so volcanic. Does John McCain have what it will take to stop the demagogue? Will conservatives vote for him?
“Juneteenth”: Republicans End Slavery, and a pivotal incident 2 days after Lincoln’s Day of Fasting
The following is reposted with permission from American Minute:
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Camp Constitution’s 16th Annual Camp Is One Month Away. Your Help is Needed
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Christian Persecution in the United States: An Interview of Phil Zodhiates author of “Innocent The Price One Man Paid For Doing What Is Right.”
Camp Constitution’s Speakers Bureau is hosting author Phil Zodhiates in Maine and New Hampshire later this month. We recently interviewed him about his experience that he wrote about in his book The Price One Man Paid For Doing What Is Right. It proves that Chrisitan persecution isn’t something that happens in other countries but also in the United States. Phil helped a former lesbian turned Christian and her daughter that was being sexually abused by the mother’s former lesbian partner. It landed him in jail for almost three years. A more recent example of such persecution is the wave of violence unlashed at the nation’s faith-based Crisis Pregnancy Centers in, and the F.B.I.’s surveillance of Traditional Catholics.
For more info please visit RomansEight28.com and to order the book https://www.amazon.com/Innocent-Price-Paid-Doing-Right/
Phil’s Maine speaking engagement will be held at the First Parish Congregation Church 650 Center Rd. Lebanon, ME Friday June 28- 7:00 PM. His New Hampshire engagement will take place at the Alton Community Church 20 Church St, Altoon, NH Saturday June 29-7:00 PM. Both events are free. Donations accepted. These events will also have the Save the Persecuted Chistian’s banner display, and a presentation by one of its spokesmen Mr. William Brown.
A link to an audio version of the interview: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2024-06-03T09_22_51-07_00
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks: The “Gay” Manifesto from 1988
I first learned about this vile screed from my friend Warren Bradley, a retired Boston policeman back in 1988. He was a subscriber to Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority newsletter, and it had reprinted this manifesto. I didn’t believe that it was true. I called the now defunct “Gay Community News” which was based in Boston and the man who answered confirmed that the paper did indeed publish it. He told me that the author was a “poet from Connecticut.” I asked him if printing such things was a way to gain supporters for the homosexual cause. He didn’t respond.
(First Published in Gay Community News, Feb. 15-21, 1987 and also put into the Congressional Record. Author – Michael Swift)
We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.
Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.
All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.
All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.
If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.
We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.
Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.
We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.
There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.
We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.
The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence–will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.
All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.
The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.
We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.
We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.
Memorial Day Ceremony Alton, NH May 27, 2024
Due to the bad weather, the parade, service at Riverside Cemetery, and the service at Monument Square with the decorating of the monuments was canceled. This even was by hosted by the American Legion’s Claude R. Batchelder Post 72 in Alton, NH. It was presided over by Commander Dave Hussey, Chaplain George Feeney played “Taps” and recited the Veteran’s Prayer. Russ Sample led us in singing “God Bless America, and the Lord’s Prayer.