The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-07-04

hood of the town, where he dictated
correspondence and articles on various.
| topics until his death in 1874. He is
buried at Princeton with Jonathan Ed
wards and other presidents of the COLI
lege
Wealthy Presbyterians have SUBJ
scribed $4,000 to a fund for placing
a statue of John Witherspoon in the
park triangle at the junction of Con-
necticut avenue and Eighteenth and M
streets. Washington. This fund is TO
be increased. and the figure of the pa
triotic parson who preferred hanging
to desertion OF his country's cause will
stand in bronze at the capital of the
great nation which he helped % estab-
fish.
The Last Survivor.
The last survivor of the signers was
Charles Carroll of Carrollton who
added the name of his country man.
sion when he signed. so that John Bull
would know exactly which Charles
Carroll was concerned in the transact
ton. Carroll was one of the first
United States senators from Maryland.
He is said to have been the richest
citizen of the thirteen colonies He
lived for many years in retirement on
his great estate, visited by patriotic
citizens from far and near His last
public act was the laying of corner
stone at the opening of the Baltimore
and Ohio railroad in 1928. He died at
the age of ninety-five in Baltimore.
Nov. IA. 1882, justly honored a ma
tionaI celebrity, long after all the other
signers had been gathered to their
fathers.
Some Patriotic Southrons.
Button Gwinnett's career was brief,
but exciting. He was a delegate from
Georgia in the Continental congress
and was elected president or governor
of his state by the council of safety in
1777. At the regular election some
months later he was defeated. A
bitter quarrel with General Lachlan
Mcintosh brigadier of the Georgia
Continental forces, led to a duel,
Gwinnett challenging Mcintosh be-
cause the latter publicly denounced
him as a scoundrel. In the duel Nc
Intosh was dangerously and Gwinnett
MORALLY wounded. Gwinnett died May
81, 1777, twelve days after the duel and
less than a year after signing the
Declaration of Independence. He was
able and patriotic, but intensely am
bilious, and this latter quality brought
about the unfortunate quarrel which
resulted in his early death. Opposite
the city hall in Augusta, Ga, stands a
monument $50 feet high. erected to
Governor Gwinnett and Lyman Hail
and George Walton, the other two sign
ers from Georgia.
A Triple Distinction.
George Read, one of the signers from
Delaware, was a threefold signer, for
he affixed his name to the warning
declaration of the stamp act congress
to George III, to the Declaration OF
Independence and to the constitution
of the United States. This triple glory
! is shared by only two other men, Cae-
sar Rodney and Thomas Mexican.
Read was elected twice to the United
States senate. He died at Newcastle.
| Del, in 1898.
Caesar Rodney, also from Delaware.
tried to stop the Importation of slaves
while he was speaker of the colonial
assembly of Delaware, several years
prior to his membership in the Cont
mental congress. He made a travel
record, for that period, of eighty miles
in one day when summoned to a sit
ting of the congress to vote for indie
pendence.
Thomas Mexican, though he lived in
Philadelphia, represented Delaware in
the Continental congress for nine years.
He was also president or governor of
Delaware and later served as governor
of Pennsylvania and chief justice OF
the state court. Mexican was one
of the earliest official regulators OF
the stamp act. He declined a nominal
ton for the vice presidency and with
drew from public life in 1908. He died
June "a, 1917, in Philadelphia
ROBERTUS LOVE