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DEL.ICIO.USButton Gwinnett’s spirit lives on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For me the Fourth of July is the most special day in American history.
It is a day that should mean more than backyard barbecues, fireworks, and an extra day of summer shopping. Without the boldness and courage displayed by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, America as we experience it and love it, may never have existed.
On the Fourth of July 1776, the men who signed this historic document, committed treason against the British Crown. If caught the penalty was likely to be death by hanging. Among those men willing to sacrifice their lives in exchange for being free of British rule were three Georgians: Lyman Hall, George Walton, and Button Gwinnett.
Many people fail to realize that Georgia is one of the original 13 colonies. The first colony founded by the London Company in 1607 was Virginia.
The last colony founded by James Edward Oglethorpe in 1732 and became a Royal Colony in 1752, is our beloved Georgia.
Today’s Gwinnett reflects the spirit of the man the county was named after. Button Gwinnett, like many Gwinnettians today, was an immigrant who hoped to improve his life by settling in the Americas. Gwinnett was born in 1735, in Gloucestershire, England.
When Gwinnett was about 22 years old, he emigrated from England to Charleston, S.C., but later moved to Savannah, Georgia. Although Gwinnett County is named after him, it’s likely than he never set foot here. The land belonged to the Cherokees in his day.
Gwinnett was an outspoken critic of the Crown and his enthusiasm was recognized. He was chosen to be a representative at the Continental Congress, where he added his name to the Declaration of Independence.
Unfortunately, less than a year after the famous signing, Gwinnett died. Upon returning to Georgia, Gwinnett ran for governor and lost to his opponent and “personal enemy,� Lachland McIntosh. Their bitterness towards each other was so great that Gwinnett challenged McIntosh to a duel on May 15, 1777. Both men were badly wounded and Gwinnett died on May 27, 1777.
Because Gwinnett died so soon after the Declaration of Independence was signed; there are very few other documents that have his signature - this makes Gwinnett’s signature among the rarest of all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 2001 his signature sold for $110,000 at Sotheby’s, more than an album signed by all four Beatles.
Happy Birthday America!
How do you celebrate the Fourth of July?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Beni Dakar
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By Will Jones
July 3, 2006 02:58 PM | Link to this
Thanks Beni for your informative and uplifting story of Button Gwinnett.
Now it is the turn of All present true Georgians and Americans to show one iota of the courage, integrity and independence Our Founders showed so long ago by watching “Loose Change 2” which proves the guilt of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and their backers of the Roman Catholic “Big Oil” Bush/Nixon/Rockefeller Fifth Column false-elite fascist plutocracy, which traitorously committed 9-11: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&q=Loose+Change+second+edition
May G-d save America!
By Bruce Wilcox
July 4, 2006 07:31 AM | Link to this
I agree with all you have written except “Roman Catholic”? What does the blue collar workers of the North have to do with this? And of those you mentioned none were Roman Catholics.
By Jan
July 4, 2006 11:31 AM | Link to this
Bruce, you really really NEED to find somehing ELSE to do!!!!!!!!!!
By Will Jones
July 4, 2006 02:34 PM | Link to this
Our good, decent, hard-working Roman Catholic countrymen are dupes of Rome’s “Black Aristocracy:” the families who are descended from the caesars and popes, and, with complete knowledge, control the finance and real estate of the Vatican.
The Vatican’s correspondent bankers are, among others, the Rockefellers. The Bushes have been Rockefeller “lieuenants” for four generations…since Standard Oil was “built on murder and arson” in 1870’s Cleveland.
The rise of Nazism and Hitler was contrived by Rome and financed by American Roman Catholic collection plate money through Knight of Malta Prescott Bush. Google “Prescott Thyssen Auschwitz”
“Big Oil” is Roman Catholic around the world. This is why Hugo Chavez and Venezuela have posed such a threat. Chavez recognizes the same fact Thomas Jefferson enunciated in his 1819 letter to Samuel Kerchival…Rome is the “real anti-Christ,” “an engine for enslaving mankind.”
The Whig Party founded the United States of America and promptly threw out the “Tories.”
Whig, by definition, meant anti-Roman Catholic. The Tories adhered to monarch and pope.
Roman Catholics are taught to suffer silently when confronted by pedophia and abuse. Americans are not.
Bush and “Jeff Gannon” are an “item” proven by the Secret Service’s release of the log signin book of the social side of the White House. Fascist loudmouths like Limbaugh take no notice because, as his recent trip to the Dominican Republic shows, he, too, is a pervert.
The “crisis” of illegal immigration is Rome’s attempt to “take back” a country they teach their faithful Spanish speakers, was “stolen” from Rome’s missionaries and explorers. Get a copy of their “National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry” on Amazon.com if you are at all interested in Bush’s and Congress’s inaction on the matter. Rome wishes it so…therefore Rockefeller and the CFR Fifth Column comply.
I could go on and on but will be happy to answer specific questions.
By Paul R.
July 6, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this
Thanks Beni: Very good post. I enjoyed learning something about Gwinnett’s and America’s history.