American Independence: Test your knowledge

Lesser-known Founding Fathers, a quiz by Aaron Levisay

Photo by Philip Myrtorp on Unsplash

Folks, there’s more to the American Revolution than merely Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Hamilton. Try to guess as many of these lesser-known Founding Fathers as you can. We’ve added hints and links to help (trust us; there’s some fun there for clicking, not just boring web articles or entries). In the meantime, all honor to these men, and Happy Independence Day from The Dakota Scout.

1. This Founding Father from Pennsylvania actually wrote the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. He was also the assistant superintendent of finance during the Revolution, and one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery during the Constitutional Convention. During the Constitutional Convention, he spoke the most. He became one of the first U.S. senators from New York after the Constitution was ratified, but despite his name, never became the leader of his home state. He was most recently immortalized in a book by the historian Richard Brookhiser titled Gentleman Revolutionary. His name was:

A. Alexander Hamilton

B. Robert Morris

C. Gouverneur Morris

2. This Founding Father was a physician from North Carolina. He even wrote one of the first histories of the state, appropriately titled History of North Carolina. He actually happened to be in Boston the night of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, and thereupon went to England to press the case to the British government about the Americans’ grievances (Britain obviously didn’t listen). He came home, became the surgeon general of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War (inoculating thousands of soldiers against smallpox), was appointed a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and elected to Congress from North Carolina after ratification. He was a scholar and a member of Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society (which is still in existence) as well. Who was he?

A. William Blount

B. Hugh Williamson

C. Alexander Martin

3. This Founding Father from Georgia should be better known. First off, for you Georgia Bulldog fans, his efforts helped bring into being the University of Georgia (it was originally called Franklin College when it started in 1798; he modeled it on Yale). He was big on education, even paying for educational expenses for his half-brothers and half-sisters out of his own pocket. He was a chaplain in the Continental Army during the Revolution, but afterward became a lawyer in 1783 – and he’s not a member of a famous family of actors. He attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 for Georgia and then was elected to the U.S. House from Georgia for 10 years (1789–1799) and to the U.S. Senate for eight (1799–1807). A bachelor who never married, he died in 1807 at the age of 53. Who was he?

A. Abraham Baldwin

B. Abraham Williams

C. Abraham Davenport

4. This Founding Father from South Carolina had a very famous last name. He served in the Revolutionary War under his renowned distant cousin (that’d be George Washington) and he commanded the U.S. Army during President Adams’s administration during the Quasi-War with France in 1798. In addition, he served in the South Carolina legislature from 1787–1804. Known in South Carolina but not as much elsewhere, this gallant man’s alliterative name was:

A. William Washington

B. James Washington

C. Augustine Washington

5. This Founding Father is mostly well-known in popular culture from being at extreme odds with John Adams in the patriotic musical 1776. (watch the video for the final occupational insult before … the “quarrel”). [A pop culture note: the actor who played John Adams in the musical is a young William Daniels, whom readers may know – depending upon their ages – as the voice of KITT in Knight Rider in the 1980s and Mr. Feeny of Boy Meets World in the 1990s and Girl Meets World almost 15 years later in 2014, among other roles. OK, back to the quiz.] He grew up in Delaware and became president (governor, now) of both Pennsylvania and Delaware; despite his name, no North Dakota town was named after him. He was chosen to represent Pennsylvania in 1765 at the Stamp Act Congress. He opposed the Declaration of Independence initially (he drafted the famous Olive Branch Petition, a last ditch effort in 1775 to reconcile with King George III and his ministers, but it was rejected by them) but went on to volunteer for the Continental Army once it had been declared. Author of “Letter from a Farmer,” and a proponent of the U.S. Constitution, he was second (arguably) to Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania politics. More than that, he even composed a HIT SINGLE! It was entitled “The Liberty Song” (Seriously. Click on the link to listen and read along the lyrics) in 1768 (modeled on the British seafaring song “Heart of Oak”). It was even sung in the 2008 HBO Series “John Adams.” This illustrious Founding Father was:

A. Robert Morris

B. William Morris

C. John Dickinson

6. This Founding Father from New Jersey really needs to be better known. Not only was this man an intelligence officer in the Continental Army under George Washington, but he also was a prisoner of war commissary during the Revolution, working for better conditions for both American and British prisoners of war. So respected was he that he was President of the Continental Congress in its final year (1782–1783, right before the Treaty of Paris was signed), a founder (and first president) of the American Bible Society, an early abolitionist, an advocate for American Indians and an advocate for women getting active in politics as well (imagine having that perspective in the 1790s!). He was elected to the Continental Congress, the Confederation Congress and then as one of the first Congressmen from New Jersey under the new U.S. Constitution. After that, he was appointed director of the U.S. Mint under Presidents Washington and Adams. This amazing Founding Father’s name was:

A. Elias Boudinot

B. William Paterson

C. William Livingston

7. This man, from Pennsylvania, not only was the Secretary of the Continental Congress that drafted the Declaration of Independence, he also helped design the Great Seal of the United States. Born in Ireland, his name (after John Hancock’s) was the second signature on the Declaration of Independence. He had been an advocate for American Indians during the French and Indian War in the 1750s–1760s (against unscrupulous Pennsylvania proprietors), so much so that the Delaware tribe adopted him, calling him The-Man-Who-Speaks-The-Truth. A member of the Philadelphia Sons of Liberty and of Franklin’s “Philosophical Society,” this gentleman truly needs to be more known. He was:

A. James Wilson

B. George Taylor

C. Charles Thomson

8. This statesman from Georgia, though originally born in Maryland, moved with his family to North Carolina where he became, as a young man, associated with “The Regulators” against the royal governor William Tryon (who once tried to kidnap George Washington). He was elected to the Georgia legislature in 1777 and 1779, at the same time serving as positions of surveyor-general and Indian commissioner. He also served in the Continental Congress from 1780–1788. In 1787, he was elected a delegate from Georgia to the Constitutional Convention, and being a member of the last Continental Congress was pivotal in getting Congress to agree to the Convention being held (though Congress’s approval wasn’t and isn’t necessary). He attended Georgia’s ratifying convention, and then became one of the first U.S. Senators from Georgia from 1789–1793. He became a circuit judge in 1796 but, for some reason, resigned his judgeship and moved to New York and became a director at the Manhattan bank and engaged in philanthropy. He died in 1823 at the age of 80. Who was this man? (Hint: “Many” people do not know of him.)

A. William Houston

B. William Few

C. William Penn

9. This politician from New Hampshire is one of the ‘six Johns’ who created the Continental, now U.S., Navy (the others being John Adams, John Barry, John Manley, John Glover and John Paul Jones). From Portsmouth, N.H., He served as an apprentice to local naval merchants and became captain of the ship Andromache at age 22. Soon he had a fleet that traveled the Caribbean to London and back to New Hampshire, becoming one of Portsmouth’s wealthiest citizens. He served on the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress from 1775–1776 (which created the Continental Navy) and then personally helped outfit a number of ships against the British Navy during the Revolution. He also served at the Battle of Bennington and Saratoga, commanding volunteers in the latter. He was a member of the Confederation Congress AND was President of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 briefly. He was elected the (other) first U.S. senator from New Hampshire in 1789, and he was our first President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate in its history. In fact, he was the one who counted the first electoral votes ever for George Washington (George Washington was the first, and only, President to have been elected UNANIMOUSLY by the Electoral College). He wasn’t done! He served in the New Hampshire legislature from 1801–1805 (as Speaker from 1804–1805) and then governor of New Hampshire from 1805–1812 (he did decline to be vice president under James Madison, however). This remarkable man’s name was:

A. John Langdon

B. John Lehman

C. John Branch

10. This young delegate to the Constitutional Convention was originally from Massachusetts. As his name might indicate, he was a redhead. After serving a stint in the Revolutionary War, he helped draft and ratify the U.S. Constitution afterwards. First in his Harvard law class of 1777, he practiced law in Newburyport, Mass., was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (state legislature) in 1783, and represented that state in the Confederation Congress the next year. In 1787, he represented Massachusetts before the Constitutional Convention, being a strong advocate for ratification. After that, he moved to New York and became a U.S. senator from that state. A leading nationalist, he had been the Federalist vice presidential nominee in both 1804 and 1808, but lost both times. He himself then was the Federalist candidate for President in 1816, but ended up being trounced by the last of the Revolutionary War veterans, James Monroe. However, he did return to the U.S. Senate from New York, serving until 1825 until he became Ambassador to Britain by President John Quincy Adams in 1825. Sadly, he died only one year later. Who was he?

A. Benjamin Rush

B. Rufus King

C. Thomas Bayard

11. This Founding Father (from Connecticut) really was one of the main movers and shakers of the new U.S. Constitution. If it hadn’t been for him and his Connecticut colleagues, the U.S. Constitution quite literally might never have been agreed to. A very pragmatic and sensible man, he and his Connecticut colleagues were the main drivers of the idea behind the “Connecticut Compromise.” This is the idea for which we have a bicameral legislature wherein the “Lower” house of Congress (the House of Representatives) has proportional representation based upon population and the “Upper” house of Congress (the U.S. Senate) would have all states be represented by two, and only two, U.S. senators regardless of size or population. Without this agreement, the U.S. Constitution was a “no go” from the smaller states, so this was ingenious on his and his Connecticut colleagues’ part. However, for this man personally, he was the first to point out, at the Constitutional Convention, that the Supreme Court could strike down unconstitutional laws. After the Constitutional Convention, and during ratification, this Founder wrote pro-ratification essays to sway the Connecticut legislature under the pseudonym “Countryman.” Personally, he was a devoted family man, fathering seven children with his first marriage and then eight with his second wife, with his final child born when he was 61! He eventually died of typhoid fever on July 23, 1793. He is indeed distantly related to a Civil War general for whom a famous tank is named. All hail this pragmatic and practical shoemaker (by trade), surveyor, mathematician, lawyer and representative (then U.S. senator) and devoted Founding Father from Connecticut, who was named:

A. Roger Sherman

B. Oliver Wolcott

C. William Johnson

12. This gentleman from South Carolina, though born in Charleston, received tutoring in Europe and additional schooling in Christ Church College at Oxford, where he actually heard the legal lectures of Sir William Blackstone himself in 1764 (Blackstone was probably the most famous jurist and legal philosopher on the planet at that time). He was accepted into the English bar in 1769, but then he spent another year in Europe studying chemistry, botany, and military science under various authorities. He returned to South Carolina in 1769, practiced law and then became a militia officer in 1775 when hostilities broke out against Britain. He fought at the battles of Charleston, Brandywine, Germantown, in Florida and at the siege of Savannah, though he was taken prisoner of war when Charleston fell and in custody until 1782. He was elected to the South Carolina legislature and then appointed delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 where he forcefully advocated for the U.S. Constitution in South Carolina during ratification. He declined to be both Secretary of State AND Secretary of War, to command the U.S. army AND even to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, but he did became minister to France in 1796, during the XYZ affair, but the French refused to see him (he wouldn’t pay them any money to leave U.S. ships alone). He did run as the Federalist candidate for president in 1804 and 1808 but was completely demolished by both Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively. He then served as lawyer and South Carolina legislator and enjoyed his philanthropic pursuits, including being on the Board of Trustees of what is now the University of South Carolina and the Society of the Cincinnati (our nation’s oldest patriotic organization), finally dying in 1825 at age 79. Who was this man?

A. Charles Pinckney

B. Pierce Butler

C. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

13. Many people credit this man, from Maryland, as being the first president in the United States. This man, the grandson of an indentured servant who came to the colonies in 1661, served two terms in the Maryland General Assembly and became known as a leading opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765. He also set up protests against the Boston Port Act and the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts in Maryland. He became a delegate to the Continental Congress and was elected, after the Revolution, as the first president of the Confederation Congress. Thus, many people credit him with being the first “president of the United States,” though it was mainly a constellation of (essentially) independent countries. He did, however, present Cornwallis’s surrender sword (that Cornwallis sent to George Washington at Yorktown) to Congress. Speaking of Congress, his statue is one of those chosen by Maryland in Statuary Hall there to represent that state. After the Constitution was ratified, he pretty much retired from public life and never held any kind of office under the U.S. Constitution, as he passed away in 1783 (before the U.S. Constitution was even proposed and debated, much less ratified). Who was this man, whose name sounds a lot like a certain current state representative from Dell Rapids?

A. Luther Martin

B. John Hanson

C. Daniel Carroll

14. This man, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1753, was one of the youngest delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Even though he was young, he had extraordinary wisdom and insight. After serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1775, and then as an aide-de-camp to his fellow Virginian, General George Washington, during the Revolution, he subsequently was elected Attorney General of Virginia in that banner year of 1776, serving until 1782 (or, almost the entirety of the Revolutionary War, including when it was ravaged by the traitor Benedict Arnold – boo, hiss!) when he was then elected Governor of Virginia from 17861788. During his time as governor, he was a part of the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he had a number of objections to the initial proposal of the Constitution. Fortunately, he didn’t believe in complaining without solving, which is why he proposed the “Virginia Plan,” which proposed a strong central government but with three branches “checking” each other (legislative, executive, and judicial). James Madison ran with this idea and it was amended and adopted in 1787 in the new U.S. Constitution. But this young man wasn’t done. President George Washington then made him our nation’s first United States Attorney General in 1789, and he also became the nation’s Secretary of State from 1794–1795. He died in 1813 in Virginia. Who was he?

A. Edmund Randolph

B. George Wythe

C. John Blair

15. If it weren’t for this man from Pennsylvania, we’d literally have had no Continental army (and, thus, no American revolution). Born in Liverpool, England, in 1734, he became a wealthy Philadelphia merchant with a well-known Shipping and Banking firm there. Later, he and other Philadelphia merchants joined in the 1765 Stamp Act protests. A decade later in 1775, the Continental Congress contracted with his firm to import ammunition and arms, which he did throughout the Revolution. Although he initially was against the Declaration of Independence, he came around and helped procure much of the arms that General Washington needed throughout the Revolution. After the Revolution, he was investigated by congressional committees for war profiteering (Thomas Paine viciously attacked him), but he was cleared. Nevertheless, the damage was done. Earlier, in 1781, he’d obtained a big loan from France, personally signed loans off of his own accounts (in order to pay the Continental soldiers, who threatened to desert because of not being paid by the Continental Congress), in order to finance the Yorktown campaign, where Cornwallis surrendered to us. He then became the Superintendent of Finances from 1781–1784, essentially running the finances of the Articles of Confederation. But he couldn’t save the Confederation (there’s a reason why the Constitutional Convention was called). He became a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania after the U.S. Constitution was promulgated (one term), declining an offer from President Washington to become our nation’s first Treasury Secretary (that honor went to Alexander Hamilton). Meantime, he unfortunately ended up speculating in western lands in the 1790s (always a bad bet), and he ended up in debtors prison for a short time before dying in obscurity and poverty in 1806. America owes much to this financial genius. Who was he?

A. Robert Yates

B. Thomas Fitzsimmons

C. Robert Morris

16. This man from New Hampshire was a great Founding Father. In fact, besides signing the Declaration of Independence and signing the Articles of Confederation, he was the first governor of his state and later Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. A physician, he accompanied (New Hampshire native) Gen. John Stark at the Battle of Bennington, where his skills were greatly in need on the battlefield. Declining to be his state’s first U.S. senator, he died in 1795. Two centuries later, Martin Sheen played a fictional president (also from New Hampshire) on the TV series “The West Wing.” The popular character was a direct descendant of this Founding Father. Who was he?

A. William Whipple

B. Josiah Bartlett

C. Matthew Whipple

17. This man (from New Jersey) actually helped design the American flag (plus signed the Declaration of Independence), not Betsy Ross (sorry; that story came from her grandson in 1870), and also helped design The Great Seal. Who was this man?

A. Francis Scott Key

B. Charles Francis Adams

C. Francis Hopkinson

18. All hail this man! Not only has he been called by some “The Father of the U.S. Bill of Rights” (he swore he wouldn’t sign the U.S. Constitution without them, and he didn’t because they weren’t in the U.S. Constitution at the beginning like he wanted), but he had previously authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights (as well as being the author of the Virginia Constitution itself) against a state-sponsored church in Virginia (among other rights). This guy was serious about the rights of the people being protected particularly from the very government he helped form. Prior to the American Revolution, he was also the author of the Fairfax Resolves, which protested British supremacy claims over the colonies in 1774 (George Washington himself asked him to write it). During the Constitutional Convention debates, he was the prime sponsor of Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which has been hotly debated even in our own time. The university named after him has a very famous economics department. Oddly enough, except for an election to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759 and then to his appointment to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, he eschewed political office before and after, retiring to his estate at Gunston Hall. Who was this amazing man from Virginia?

A. James Madison

B. Edmund Randolph

C. George Mason

19. This Scottish-born Founding Father, though often overshadowed by his more famous Pennsylvania friend Benjamin Franklin, is said to have spoken the second most at the Constitutional Convention (second only to the answer in quiz question #1). Born in Scotland in 1735 at Carskerdo (near St. Andrews), this man was educated at the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh. He emigrated to America in 1765, right in the middle of the Stamp Act crisis, accepting a law clerkship under his friend John Dickinson. In 1774, he became politically active and wrote the Considerations on the Authority of the British Parliament, which was a very influential Whig tract on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. But he wasn’t as big on independence as others, voting on June 6, 1776, for a three-week delay in the Declaration. However, he did vote in the affirmative once it was passed and he signed it on August 2, 1776. He later was appointed a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. President Washington named him an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (he also took a position as the first law professor at the College of Philadelphia, which is now the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania College of Law traces its existence to his law lectures). During this time he made very unwise western land investments and almost went to debtor’s prison (had his son not paid off his debts). But the damage was done, and he died at the home of his friend and fellow Justice James Iredell in North Carolina, at the age of 55 in 1798. Who was this man? [Hint: A future president who also had university ties was NOT a direct descendent.]

A. James Wilson

B. Jared Ingersoll

C. George Clymer

20. This largely-unknown Founding Father probably has one of the coolest names of all of them! This Pennsylvanian, born in Philadelphia in 1755, was a member of both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He then served as an undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury in the administration of George Washington in 1789 and was appointed revenue administrator in 1792. He was a huge supporter of the U.S. Constitution and its ratification. When he was in the Treasury he co-authored with Alexander Hamilton the very famous Report on Manufactures, the first kind of “economic blueprint” for the new nation. When the Constitution was being debated, he was a staunch advocate of what became the Second Amendment. He was at first a Federalist, then switched to the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans in the early 1800s, when President Jefferson appointed him as Purveyor of Public Supplies (an office, oddly enough, created by Jefferson’s arch-rival Hamilton in 1795), serving in that role until 1812. He was a member of the Philosophical Society, a writer on manufacturing, tariffs and even naval power for the young republic. He acquired vast lands of timber and coal in the west of Pennsylvania, which led to an increase to his family fortune for later generations, and he peacefully died on July 17, 1824 in Philadelphia. Who was he?

A. Jacob Cox

B. Tench Coxe

C. Archibald Cox

Bonus Question #1- In honor of the editors of The Dakota Scout, who have been known to start off their “The Scouting Report” podcast cracking open a good American brew: In what year did The Boston Beer Company start brewing and distributing Samuel Adams beer (as Samuel Adams himself was a “maltster,” as well as a patriot, “Sons of Liberty” founder and Governor of Massachusetts)?

A. 1984

B. 1985

C.1986

Bonus Question #2 - Speaking of Scotland, this Scottish philosopher, who turned 300 years old on June 5 this year, was a prominent (economic and moral) philosopher and influence on our Founding Fathers. You might call him the “Founding Father” of economics. His major works were The Theory of Moral Sentiments (c. 1759) and his world famous treatise on economics which came out the same year as the American Revolution (1776), The Wealth of Nations. He died July 17, 1790, profoundly influencing all of the Founders of the United States, as well as the rest of the world. Who was he?

Answers: (1) C; (2) B; (3) A; (4) A: (5) C; (6) A; (7) C; (8) B; (9) A; (10) B; (11) A: (12) C; (13) B; (14) A; (15) C; (16) B; (17) C; (18) C; (19) A(20) B (BONUS QUESTION #1) B; (BONUS QUESTION #2) – Adam Smith.

Sources: www.allthingsliberty.com, www.history.com, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers, American Battlefield Trust | Preserving Hallowed Battlegrounds (battlefields.org), AMERICAN HERITAGE, and YouTube, among others. Please click on them all at your leisure. And if you liked this quiz, imagine getting all kinds of great content from The Dakota Scout daily by becoming a paid member here. Happy Independence Day!