who signed the declaration of independence first

He returned to Congress in 1777, and then continuously served until February 1783, including several months in 1781 as president. One of the strongest supporters of independence, McKean served from 1774-76 in the Continental Congress. He was one of only six men to have signed both, and the only one of those to have secured an advanced, formal education in Colonial America.” Thomas McKean Jonathan Russ, associate professor of history at UD, has called Read “a man whose witness to our nation’s birth is so unique that no other institution of higher learning in the United States can lay claim to such an individual…. He was Delaware’s senator from 1791-92 and its chief justice from 1793 until his death in 1798. Read was a member of Delaware’s Constitutional Convention in 1776 and served as acting governor of Delaware in 1777. In The University of Delaware: A History, John Munroe noted, “The first class was a most remarkable one, possibly the most distinguished in terms of the later achievement of its members, taken as a whole, of any class in any school in America.” Munroe adds that the class included not only distinguished statesmen, but doctors, merchants and scholars of reputation. Francis Alison, a noted Colonial scholar. George Read, Thomas McKean and James Smith all were in the first class of about a dozen students in the New London, Pennsylvania, academy founded in 1743 by the Rev. These three included one who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution, one who was known as one of the strongest supporters of independence and one who raised the first volunteer militia in Pennsylvania for the purpose of resisting the British. Americans honor the founders of the nation on July 4, the anniversary of the day patriots met in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence.įor the University of Delaware community, that historic event has special significance since three of those signers were graduates of the 18th century academy to which the University traces its roots.

Who signed the declaration of independence first